Namesake
by VigoGrimborne
Summary: What's in a name? That was not the question Rand had in mind. He wanted to know what the 'Isle of Madmen' was like. A prequel of sorts to another story, known as Of Ravens and Dragons. Major spoilers for WOT in general.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note, as of 1/16/2019:**_ **To both new and old readers, an update. This story is done, but it needs checking by myself, to ensure compliance with WoT canon. That involves me rereading the entire series, as I was planning to do anyway, in preparation for writing the full story this is but a prequel to. So if you see something that doesn't make sense, it's either a mistake, or an intentional thing placed here to prepare for the real story.**

 **As I'm very busy with life and other, currently in-progress stories, this will probably remain incomplete for a while, but I'd rather do it well than rush, and that is going to require I clear out some of my other works first. Rest assured, I _never_ abandon a project permanently.**

 **With all of that said, this is still totally readable. It's just the little details that need attention.**

The man had spent the last few years traveling the world. It was partly a burning desire to see new things, and partly a way to keep himself occupied. It was hard to not get bored after fighting for years to unite most of the known world against the Dark One and his armies, not to mention dealing with the Forsaken along the way. He had been known as Rand Al'Thor, The Dragon Reborn.

He was also officially dead, although that was understandable. His peculiar link with Moridin, one of the Forsaken, had turned out to be the answer to the fact that Rand was fated to die, but also apparently not. His body did, and presumably, Moridin's soul with it, while Rand woke up in Moridin's body, with almost no one the wiser. It was more than a fair trade, given his original body was missing a hand, among various other problems. He was no longer able to channel to any degree despite the ability existing in both himself and Moridin before, but that didn't bother him. His strange pattern-manipulation abilities that he had demonstrated in the moments after waking had mostly faded. He had a sword, he was a Blademaster, and he was free to travel the world, anonymously. Right now though, he was a bit annoyed.

"What do you mean no one goes there? I thought the Sea Folk would sail anywhere." Rand had traveled most of the countries he knew of and had recently been questioning sailors about islands, trying to find somewhere he hadn't yet been. Ideally, somewhere that had never heard of the Dragon Reborn. Over the years he had developed a distaste for hearing the horribly incorrect stories about himself. Additionally, it had to be somewhere interesting. Rand didn't know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but his travels looked like they were nearing an end because he was running out of places he hadn't been. He had even been across the island country of Seanchan a year ago. Mat and Tuon were doing a fairly good job of retaking the war-torn continent and looked to be almost done, actually. Now he was back and looking to venture into another sea. He had heard several rumors of a place known only to the Sea Folk, which they apparently called the 'Isle of Madmen'. It had fit his requirements, so Rand had asked a Sea Folk how to get there.

"I'm telling you, stranger, no Sea Folk has set foot in those waters and returned alive. We don't even know if it is really an island, the whole massive area is wreathed by a bank of fog that never lets up. Any ship that sails in never comes back."

Rand was more and more intrigued as the Sea Folk sailor tried to dissuade him. He didn't have a death wish, but this was exactly the kind of mystery he liked. "I don't ask that you go in yourself. JUst take me to the edge and drop me off in a small boat. Wait a day, and if I don't come back, you can leave." Rand knew he sounded insane, but he did actually know that there was something out there. During his confrontation with the Dark One, he was at one point able to see the entire world from above. He hadn't been focused on it at the time, but he was sure there was quite a bit located about where this 'Isle of Madmen' was supposed to be. Besides, how did it get its name if no one ever came back?

The Sea Folk sailor (The captain actually, or whatever the Sea Folk equivalent was) looked him in the eyes. He must have seen Rand's sincerity because he sighed. "Fine. We were going to sail quite close anyway, so it will be doable."

If Rand hadn't known better, he would have chalked this up to his Ta'veren nature. But that was gone too, so this was really just a massive coincidence. Actually, it was a good thing he wasn't Ta'veren anymore. They might change the world around them, and manipulate chance unconsciously, but they were always destined to do big things... whether they liked it or not. Mat was a great example of 'NOT'. It also might have been a bit confusing, given one of Rand's few remaining side-effects of his pattern-seeing-abilities included that of seeing Ta'veren, which manifested itself as a glowing light around the individual in question, the strength of said light corresponding to the strength of the Ta'veren. It would have been annoying to constantly see himself glowing.

Rand shook the Sea Folk's hand, and they sealed the deal. While Sea Folk didn't do 'payment' for what they referred to as the gift of passage, Rand's 'gift' in return was far greater than that for a normal trip. Even though the Sea Folk fully expected Rand's trip to be one way.

Several weeks later, Rand was standing on the deck of the ship, staring at something strangely familiar. This wall of fog that rose seemingly arbitrarily around the sea was very similar to the one he had seen and later dispelled by accident, around Rhuidean. This wall, however, was much, much larger. Rand suspected that it made a massive circle, if not a dome. If he was right, he couldn't imagine the size it would be, because it looked like a straight line to the horizon in either direction from here. It would have to be so big, he couldn't even see the curve. He dropped over the side of the large vessel, and into the smaller one tethered to its side.

There he had prepared food and water for about a week's worth of time, multiple oars, (he was bringing spares) and a tarp in case of rain. He also had with him a knapsack of various small items, his sword in its sheath at his side, and a burning desire to see the other side of that fog bank. It took little effort to cut himself loose from the Sea Folk vessel and to row into the fog.

There were no farewells, as the Sea Folk had avoided the, as one of them had put it, 'madman going to join his peers'.

The day was bright, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Rand savored this for a moment, before setting himself to face the fogbank and beginning to row. He breached the fog a few minutes later. As he continued forward, he noticed that it was colder inside, though that was to be expected. He rowed for an endless tract of time and was only aware of how long he had been rowing when he finally broke through the fog to what was apparently the inside of the...

He looked up. No fog above him. It was a circle of fog and not a dome, apparently. The inside didn't look any different to the outside. After a moment, he decided to keep going. There was _something_ here.

Over the next five days, Rand had ample time to question this decision. He pushed forward out of stubbornness more than anything, though the knowledge that he had no choice certainly helped.

By the time his supplies had run out, Rand was fairly certain he was done for. He knew there was something out here, but he must have missed it. It had been mostly luck whether he would find anything, and he had bet his life on it. Not the smartest decision, in retrospect, but he had been so sure. He was in the middle of berating himself for over-confidence when a shadow passed overhead.

He looked up, but it was near noon, and he could make out nothing after inadvertently staring into the sun. By the time his eyes returned to normal, whatever it had been was gone. Still, he could infer at least one thing from that. It had to be fast, to make it out of sight in just a few seconds. And, unless he was mistaken, the presence of something that didn't live in the water implied land somewhere. At least, he really hoped it didn't live in the water.

He was rudely awoken from his unsettled dreams in the middle of the night. Literally rudely. He thought he was hallucinating from lack of water or food when he was lifted bodily and hoisted aboard another ship, none too gently. His mind quickly cleared, but by then he had already been disarmed and had no chance of defeating his rescuers. And, as he was thrown into a cell, he realized that for the moment they were also his captors.

A few days passed, and Rand learned very little. His captors were massive, for one thing. They all were at least three hundred pounds, but mostly muscle. They weren't fat, they were just big. They looked to be at least halfway decent fighters, though some of their weapons were strange. Rand noticed several double-headed axes among these, something he hadn't seen before.

Their helmets too were unique in design, only covering the tops of their heads. Not that there was much to protect, none of them seemed very bright. Even their leader struck Rand as dull, and he hadn't even tried to question Rand after the first day he was awake. He had asked then, in what Rand was surprised to hear was the Old Tongue, which because of his memories as Lews Therin Rand could reply to.

The questions were simple. Rand had informed them that he was a traveler from afar, and he had no idea where he was. The leader hadn't questioned that and didn't really seem to care. Although, he seemed preoccupied. Rand quickly grew bored, and he knew he couldn't rely on his captors to not just dispose of him at any time. He wasn't actually sure why they wanted him alive.

To pass the time, he planned his escape once the ship came within sight of land. This was hindered by the fact that he hadn't stepped foot on deck since the night of his rescue and capture. He didn't know for sure how many people were on the ship, or what else was in the ship besides the inside of the cell he had been locked in. It was strangely roomy, and one of twelve cells set into the hallway. The cells had barred fronts, and the bars were made out of a green-tinted metal he had never seen before. His sword was kept by the apparent leader of these men, who had taken to wearing it as if it was his own.

The fourth night of his captivity, the ship docked. Rand could hear it, and that was the only reason he knew about it. He decided to wait a few hours and then put into action his escape. The odds were pretty good, though he might be forced to leave his sword. A few hours later, he called over a nearby guard. He faked a stomach problem and was confirmed in his opinion of the general stupidity of these men when the guard opened the cell door to hurriedly hand him a bucket. The sturdy guard fell to a punch in the throat, and Rand proceeded to knock him unconscious (It took several tries, even after removing the helmet). He moved to a corner behind the hatch and waited for a moment to see if he had been heard. He was just about to head up when something exploded.

The ship rocked violently, and Rand could hear the men on deck rushing around. He decided that whatever was going on would be a good distraction, so he crept up to the deck, cautiously and slowly as to not be seen in the darkness. Or, it was supposed to be dark. Part of the deck was apparently on fire, and that illuminated the nearly panicked actions of the crewmembers as they tried to put the fire out.

Rand slipped behind one of the masts and observed, trying to spot a way off the ship undetected. What he saw offered no immediate solutions, but it confused Rand greatly. The men were acting as if some outside threat had set the middle of the deck on fire. What's more, these massive, brutish thugs were clearly afraid. There was nothing to be seen, but they jolted at every sound, and a few were visibly quivering. Then, Rand heard something he had never heard before. It was an otherworldly shriek, something that was so high-pitched it made his head hurt, and it was getting louder. Almost as if it was getting closer...

A purple bolt of fire emerged from the air above the ship and blew one of the masts apart. Thankfully, not the one Rand was currently behind. Rand was fairly certain that this wasn't channeling. The strange shriek and color of the fireball seemed like unnecessary drains of power, and that fireball was stronger than any Rand had seen used by channelers back home. Not that it wasn't possible that it was the work of a channeler, but it didn't seem like it. That still left the question of what exactly it was though.

A nearby crewmember shed a small amount of light on the situation. "Night Fury..." These words seemed to be the name of whatever was attacking, and judging by the men's expressions, they knew something about what it was. Based on the amount of fear he was seeing, Rand decided that he needed to get off this ship, the sooner the better. But, before he went, he wanted to get his sword back. It was longer and more refined than any he had seen here, and he didn't want to lose it when he might not be able to get a good replacement. He scanned the ship, looking for the one who had taken to wearing his sword.

He spotted him, currently... abandoning ship. Great, he could kill two birds with one stone. Rand for the first time raised his attention to the island the ship had apparently docked at. It was tiny, only a few hundred feet of grassy slopes, without a single tree. The only thing of interest was a squat building, which appeared to be a storehouse. Who put a storehouse in the middle of nowhere? The man he was after was making his way towards it.

Rand bolted from behind the mast, avoiding several startled crewmembers, and jumped. He landed in the shallows and waded ashore. The man with his sword had disappeared, probably inside the storehouse. That was when Rand heard an unearthly shriek, this one more of pain than anger. The men on the ship cheered, and the storehouse was obliterated.

Rand blinked in shock. Something large and black had plowed _through_ the storehouse, hitting it at such speed that it had continued through it and to the edge of the tiny island. From the glimpse he had caught before it slid out of sight, Rand thought that it was possible this thing was a Raken, such as the Seanchan used. But he discarded that theory almost immediately, even as he moved towards the trashed pile of wood that had once been a storehouse. Going off of what little he knew of Raken, he was pretty sure they were nowhere near that fast. Still, the shape and size had been similar.

He was now close enough to see that the storehouse had indeed been obliterated from the impact. It had almost been pulled by the force smashing through it, spreading the pieces in a line away from the original site of impact. He could see the man who had been in the storehouse. He hadn't fared well at all and appeared to have been killed in the impact. The body was lying in the strewn debris, implying he too had been hit with such force that he had been carried with the projectile as it slid. Rand quickly moved over to him and reclaimed his sword, rebuckling the hilt and drawing the sword. The men from the ship were approaching the wreckage, and none of them had noticed him in the dark yet.

That didn't last. One of them saw him and alerted the others. "Hey, there's someone here!"

The reply was swift. "Get 'im!"

The men charged Rand, and he had a moment to consider his options. He could easily defeat all of them, but he wasn't nearly as certain of his ability to work the large ship that was his only way off the island without help. There was also the matter of whatever had been attacking, and whether or not it was dead. His decision was made for him when the four men attacked at once, and he was forced to end them. He couldn't risk non-lethal blows in the darkness, they made him too open when he couldn't see the attacks coming.

In a matter of moments, he had killed the last of them, though their bulk made that a bit more difficult than he had been expecting. He was wondering where the other crewmembers had gone when he remembered the thing that had, by his best guess, been hit by a literal shot in the dark.

He moved towards the final destination of the dark blur that had trashed the storehouse as it crashed from the sky. The sight he could barely make out in the dark night was surprising. The remaining crewmembers, numbering a little over a dozen, were spread out in a half-circle around a dark shape lying motionless in the sand. One of them appeared to have his back towards the shape and was facing the rest.

A fire flared, seemingly from the hand of the lone crewmember, bathing the scene in light. Rand quickly realized that the lone man was not one of the crew. He was tall, but not big like everyone else Rand had seen since crossing through the fog. The man was also dressed quite differently, his armor black and form-fitting. He was wielding something very familiar to Rand, a sword of fire. His face was unobstructed, and his emerald eyes glinted with pure rage.

Rand immediately noticed that he was standing in a defensive posture, and his attention shifted to what was behind the man opposing the hunters. This... defied recognition. It was no Raken. Raken were like overgrown bats. This thing, from what Rand could see in the firelight, had black scales, as opposed to the smooth skin of Raken. It was also bleeding, with a familiar arrow sticking out of its side. Its eyes couldn't be seen from here, but the heaving of its chest proved that it was still alive.

Rand's attention was pulled back to the lone figure as he began to speak, voice dark with anger. "Quite the lucky shot. Whichever one of you hunters that was, I'd avoid any thunderstorms for a while. You've likely used up all of your luck for the foreseeable future."

One of the -hunters, he had called them- laughed. "Or maybe you're just unlucky. You know, there's probably still a bounty on you, dead or alive. Quite a large one at that."

The lone man looked confused. "Where have you guys been the last two years? Seriously. You missed a LOT."

A different hunter sneered. "None of your business."

The lone man smirked, though he was still clearly quite angry, possibly at being shot out of the sky. "Well, you should know Vigo rescinded that bounty, and he's dead now anyway, shot in the back by his own men. Ryker drowned, Johann is frozen solid in a block of ice, and Krogan's disappeared. You'll have quite the difficult time finding anyone to pay up."

The hunter who seemed to now be the de-facto leader of the group raised his ax. "Maybe, but a Night Fury cloak will be just as good. And if you're no value, we'll just leave you here... in pieces."

Rand had heard enough. He had little to no idea what was going on, but he had two ways off of this island, and he was pretty sure he would rather deal with one man he could help than a dozen who were keeping him prisoner. Besides, he had already killed four of these hunters, and the others wouldn't be happy to make that discovery.

The leading hunter took a menacing step forward. "Like I said, your luck has run out."

The lone figure raised his sword of fire.

He wasn't sure if the man could channel, but the sword looked man-made, not like the sword of pure saidin-summoned fire he had used in the past. He figured the man would appreciate the help, regardless.

Rand drew his sword, and quickly attacked one of the hunters forming the circle around the loner, slipping into the circle before any of the others could react. He made brief eye contact with the loner. "Looks like your luck holds strong." And then he turned to face the hunters closest to him, dancing between them, cutting through their armor and limbs before retreating back. He wasn't sure where this man had come from, but he had a feeling it had to do with the beast he was clearly planning on defending with his life. Rand just hoped they could deal with the hunters before whatever it was woke up.

The loner had engaged the new leader of the hunters (though Rand may have been the only one aware of the fate of the previous leader). His sword of fire wasn't great at dealing fatal wounds, but it was good at setting things alight. It was clearly no normal fire, as it left flames on anything it hit, even if the target was metal. The loner fought with ferocity and some skill, though he seemed to be fighting out of instinct and anger above any specific technique. He and the leader were and to hand now, struggling.

Rand was about to aid the loner when he heard a distinctive click and whir, followed by the loner stomping on the Hunter's foot. The hunter screamed in pain, and the loner pulled his foot out of the man's now blood-soaked boot. Rand was having a hard time processing the fact that the loner apparently had just stabbed the hunter with his foot, which as he watched rotated up with that distinctive click and whir to reveal a less deadly prosthetic. That was certainly unexpected. He turned his attention to the remaining hunters, and together he and the loner fought off the last of them.

The few surviving hunters who had held back were apparently a bit more intelligent than their peers. Or more cowardly. Either way, they decided that fleeing back to their ship and getting off the island as quickly as possible was the best choice. Rand and the loner watched them go, content to let them leave. They stood in silence for a moment. Then the loner turned, and hurried back to the beast on the shore, almost running.

Rand followed because he figured that if the beast was waking up, both of them might be needed to deal with it.

The loner noticed that he was following and turned, standing between Rand and the beast. "I don't know who you are, so forgive me if I don't exactly trust you with a weapon around him right now." The loner jerked his head, indicating the beast. "Especially given how good you are with it."

Rand was starting to slowly make a few connections, now that he had time to stop and think. The loner had appeared on an island in the middle of nowhere, and he had only appeared once the beast was shot down. There were no other ships, and the loner was wearing a strange suit of armor, unlike the hunters. Rand nodded and resheathed his sword. He then unbuckled it and placed it on the ground. "Fair enough."

He followed the man to the beast, keeping a safe distance. Now that he had time to examine it in the light of the man's still lit sword, he could see more. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw a sleek black saddle. The beast had what appeared to be four legs, wings, and a tail. There was something off about the tail. It had a spade-shaped head, and Rand could see what he thought must be closed eyelids. The animal was indeed scaled, and reptilian in nature. All in all, completely unlike Raken in anything but size and color. Raken could be compared to horses, but of the sky. This thing was closer to a black mountain cat than a horse. All told, it certainly had the appearance of shadowspawn. However, Rand doubted that the Dark One wouldn't have used these at the Last Battle if he had had them, and there had been none of them there.

The loner crouched by the arrow and inspected it for a moment before slowly and carefully removing it. Black blood flowed from the new wound, and the loner carefully packed the wound with herbs and cloth, before binding it shut with more cloth. The process was efficient, and this clearly wasn't the first time the man had done this. After the loner had finished tending to the wound, the man immediately examined the arrow. He smiled broadly. "These hunters were gone for quite a while, it seems. They ran out of their special arrows. It must have just been the shock that brought us down." The relief in his next words was obvious, and they were spoken softly, intended for the man himself more than Rand. "He'll be fine."

The loner moved away from the beast and turned to Rand. "This might be a little late, but thanks for the help."

Rand nodded. "I had no idea what was going on, but I figured helping the one fighting my captors was a smart move."

The loner frowned. "Why exactly were they holding you, prisoner?"

Rand shrugged. "They found me adrift after I ran out of supplies, and apparently decided to help me, but keep me prisoner at the same time."

The loner smiled, his posture relaxing slightly. "Not the smartest move, making an enemy of you then. They would have had us if it wasn't for you. It would have been really embarrassing if this was how we went down, after everything me and him have been through."

Rand shrugged. Bad luck had been the end of many. This was especially true around the time of the Last Battle when bubbles of evil would randomly kill people. That seemed like a good opening to ask a few questions. "On that note, what exactly is he?" He pointed at the beast, still unconscious.

The loner laughed. "A Night Fury. Not a surprise you don't recognize it, given how rare they are." His face fell. "He might be the last, for all I know, and we've been searching for more than five years..."

Rand was still confused. "But what _is_ a Night Fury? I've traveled far, but I have never seen anything like this. Flying reptiles are entirely out of my experience." The loner looked troubled. "You can't have traveled that far if you've never seen a dragon. They're everywhere around here, in all shapes and sizes. This kind might be rare, but for you to have never seen a dragon..."

Rand was shocked. He had always assumed the creature on his banner, the one he was NAMED AFTER, was just a symbol, created for Lews Therin in the last age. He had never expected to actually find one. Much less to find that the name didn't even refer to a single creature, but to a whole grouping of creatures. From what the loner had said, they were everywhere here. Rand realized he should probably explain where he came from. "I come from a place on the other side of that wall of fog a few days north of here. When I said I have traveled far, I was referring to the lands out there. I've traveled most of the world outside of the fog, and I have never seen a dragon until today."

The loner looked crestfallen. "And I've explored most of the world inside the fog... so if all the dragons are here... he really must be the last of his kind."

Rand felt bad for the man, as he so clearly wanted to find more of this strange animal, so much so as to have been looking for five years... "But that doesn't mean there aren't any. I've traveled far, but there were many places I couldn't reach. You might still find them in the mountains, or the untouched wilds that exist in many places."

The man brightened. "True. And you don't seem afraid of him, so that puts you a step ahead of most Vikings already if you plan on traveling the archipelago."

Before Rand could respond, a new light pierced the dark. It was one of reflected firelight, dancing in massive green ovals, with the slit black pupils best reflecting the flames. Said pupils widened as they focused on the loner, who Rand realized he still didn't know the name of. Introductions weren't on anyone's mind right now apparently.

The loner rushed to the dragon's side, completely unafraid of what a large and injured predator might do. He was apparently right to be confident, as the creature literally purred, a strange bass rumbling, as the loner talked to it, petting its head. Rand slowly approached, being sure to stay in the dragon's line of sight so as to not startle it. He was a bit preoccupied, however.

Rand was still able to see Ta'veren, and that meant that he was not startled by the appearance of a glowing light surrounding the man. What did surprise him was that it hadn't appeared until the dragon had opened its eyes and that the dragon had it as well. As the loner moved closer to the dragon, the light increased in intensity. If Rand understood this correctly, both the man and dragon were Ta'veren... but only together. They were weaker Ta'veren when separated, and apparently not at all when alone. This was something that even Rand with his memory of a life in the last age, one of learning and incredible advancements covering multiple centuries, had never thought possible. He was suddenly very interested in the story these two had, and everything about them. Ta'veren were always important, world-shakers and changers. Rand knew this better than most. They were by no means certain to live long enough to do it, but it was certain that they would change the course of the pattern if they lived long enough.

Rand met the stare of the dragon again, and this time he saw intelligence, far beyond that of any animal. It helped that he knew the dragon was Ta'veren, something Rand had thought restricted to humans alone, and certainly not something applicable to animals. Dragons, or maybe just this one, were clearly not animals.

He forced his mind back into the present and continued to approach. He stopped just short of the dragon's large head. "May I?" He asked the dragon directly. Instead of responding, it looked at him for a moment, before pushing its nose into his hand.

"I never got your name, or gave you mine." That was the loner, watching with interest.

"I would be Rand."

"And I'm Hiccup. Rand, meet Toothless. Known to the archipelago as the unholy offspring of Lightning and Death itself."

Rand laughed as the dragon gave what was clearly a very toothy smile. "Whoever named him had quite the sense of humor."

Hiccup laughed in response as the dragon shocked Rand by retracting its teeth into its gums, proving his name at least sometimes accurate. Hiccup got up and stretched. "Will you be good to fly bud?" The dragon stood, flapped its wings a few times, and then nodded at Hiccup. Hiccup jumped onto the dragon's back. "Well, you coming?"

Rand ran back to get his sword, then vaulted aboard behind Hiccup.

He hadn't told Hiccup his full name, or his old title. He wanted to leave those things behind. Now that wish was being answered in a very ironic way. Instead of being strange because he was the Dragon Reborn, now his title was strange because around here, it would make no sense. So, for now, he would just go by Rand. He had wanted anonymity, and new experiences. This place was shaping up to be far more of both than he had hoped. Whatever happened next, it would be an adventure. Especially traveling with two Ta'veren. That was his last coherent thought before he experienced flight on a dragon for the first time.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Author's Note:_** **Here's the rest of this expanded One-shot. I decided to tie it into my planned story** ** _Of Ravens and Dragons_** **. Enjoy.**

The sensation of flight was something new to Rand. After several years as one of the most powerful channelers in existence, there wasn't much he hadn't done. But flight was one of the intrinsic limitations of channeling. The same way one could not lift oneself, one could not fly. Even bridges woven of solid air had a hard limit to how far they could go. Which, while impressive to see, was still technically just walking. He had also never ridden a Raken, which he was now realizing were downright slow compared to this.

So this, the immense speed in which the black dragon flew, the wind streaming past his face, the boundless ocean below, was amazing. He laughed in wonder, which prompted an amused warble from Toothless.

After a few minutes, Hiccup looked back. "Yeah, this never gets old. Even when he is going slow and steady." He patted the dragon below them. "Someone's learned since Astrid's first flight."

Toothless snorted, slapping his rider with an ear.

Hiccup slapped back playfully. "Or is this your way of thanking him for saving us?" He paused. "Actually, you weren't awake for that, were you bud?"

There was silence for a few moments. Rand could feel something change in the air. "What is it?"

Hiccup spoke softly. "You were... extremely good with that sword." His voice was careful, a hint of something unidentifiable tinging it.

"You're not bad yourself." Rand chuckled. "That weapon is quite impressive." He still didn't know if it was made using the Power or not.

"It's not really meant to be a weapon." Hiccup sighed, a hand on the hilt. "It was originally designed to just be a hot blade, to cut through something specific. Later, I figured out it had a calming effect on dragons. Like they saw me as one of them because I had my own fire and wings."

"Wings?" Rand wasn't sure if he had heard that right.

"Yup. But..." He sighed, slumping slightly. "No one can avoid fighting sometimes."

Rand knew that far better than anyone. His past was exceedingly dark, stained with the blood of... thousands? Tens of thousands? Not all by his direct action, though he wasn't counting shadowspawn in those numbers. He had definitely killed hundreds of thousands of those in the last few months before the Last Battle.

"No matter how hard you run, no." Ta'veren were also incapable of running, to an extent. Their very nature made that futile. Willingly or not, they'd bend chance towards whatever their potential destiny was. Reaching it was questionable, but the universe would make sure they faced that direction, at the very least.

Hiccup laughed darkly. "Run, hide, persuade. I fancied myself a peacemaker, a persuader who could prevail no matter what, change anyone's mind. I was, shall we say, disillusioned." He rested his hand on Toothless's head, softly this time. "We both were."

The silence lasted longer this time. Hiccup eventually spoke again. "I would ask you where you want to be taken, where your home is. But you came from beyond the fog wall. And we can't cross it." There was an odd inflection to those words.

"Can't, or won't?"

Hiccup smiled, looking back. "My question exactly. We discovered it a while ago. I'm pretty sure this wall extends around the entire archipelago. But Toothless won't even try to cross it." That was agreed with by way of a frustrated huff. "So, why not? I don't know, and he can't tell me."

Rand frowned. "You two don't have any way to communicate?" He knew, by indication of the Ta'veren status of the dragon, that Toothless was sapient. As if it wasn't obvious from the way the two interacted. Though, he had seen many things few men had seen. Ogier, Trollocs, Aelfinn and Eelfinn. Large creatures, monstrosities, abominations, beings from other worlds. All capable of speech, in some way. Though Trollocs were horrible abominations, even they could speak. It defied explanation that dragons could not.

Hiccup shrugged. "We get by. He understands me, and has ways of making most things understood."

Rand brought the conversation back to the original point, stymied by the lack of true communication between dragon and rider. "But anyway, I don't want to go back right now. I was looking for a new cause. Something to occupy my time. Exploring has run its course, at least for me."

Hiccup looked up, at the now cloudy sky. "We explored for a while. Mapping the world, so I thought. But we can't anymore." His shoulders tensed. "Responsibility lies heavy on both of us."

Rand laughed. "Duty is heavier than a mountain. That's half of an old saying."

"What's the other half?" Hiccup sounded interested. "Because that part's definitely true."

"The other part..." Rand debated whether or not he should say. "Duty is heavier than a mountain; death lighter than a feather." A bit more depressing when said in full.

"Oh." Hiccup looked back, his face conflicted. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"That responsibility is something you can't just ignore, or get rid of. While life is all too easy to lose, to give up, to take. It is a saying of the Borderlanders, who fought an endless war to protect the rest of the world from the Blight."

"You just reminded me exactly where you come from." Hiccup's voice was distracted. "I have about a million questions. But they're going to have to wait."

"Why?" There was a hint of concern in Hiccup's voice that worried Rand. The clouds were getting darker, the wind rippling the ocean below, waves rising higher now.

"A storm is coming." Hiccup scanned the horizon, Toothless doing the same. "And we need to set down. But there's nothing around."

"Haven't you mapped the world?" Rand spoke lightly, scanning the horizon now as well.

"Not this last bit. That's why we're here. Especially when we aren't supposed to be." Hiccup laughed. "We ended up with some unexpected free time, and I decided we might as well fill in that last blank spot." His voice was sad. "I owe it to Toothless. to make sure there aren't any Night Furies out there. Finding any, just one would be amazing. But I don't think..."

He trailed off, staring at the horizon line. "I don't know where they went, what happened to them. They apparently aren't out there beyond the fog. So these few hundred miles of mostly ocean... this is it. The end of the search." His voice cracked, and he bowed his head. "The last hope I had for him. He really is the last of his kind."

Rand might have followed up on that. But the storm was rapidly approaching, the clouds almost a tint of dark green, the ocean now entirely flat, an ominous silence and stillness persisting. "Is that land over there?" He pointed at the smudge on the horizon.

Rain was beginning to fall. Hiccup jolted back upright even as Toothless banked and began flying faster, racing the storm to that smudge. "Looks like. A good thing too." His voice was still dark. "Lightning is attracted to metal, and we're both wearing quite a bit."

Rand held on to the ridges of the saddle beneath him as Toothless sped up, faster than he had thought possible and still increasing in speed. The rain was making it hard to see. The island was large, if not massive, and mostly flat, save for a series of rocky ledges piled up like a staircase on one edge. A natural formation unlike anything Rand had ever seen. He wasn't at all surprised when Toothless made straight for the rocks. The rain was pouring now. A cave would be perfect.

But there were none to be had. Even when Rand dismounted and the three travelers split up momentarily to check. No caves. The rock was sheer and unbroken, offering no cover.

Hiccup shrugged, rain sliding off of his armor in torrents. "Well, at least we can sit under a tree or something." He and Toothless, who was walking carefully to avoid the rapidly expanding mud puddles, stopped under a particularly expansive oak tree, huddled in a small area where the rain was slightly blocked by the leaves. It was still far from dry.

Rand joined them, finding himself wishing he could still channel. A simple weave of air would suffice to keep the pouring deluge off and away from them, and a careful weave of fire to warm the air around them. He had been more than capable of such simple acts before. But now he couldn't channel at all. A fair price to pay, all things considered, but it would have come in handy.

Hiccup apparently felt the same. "Bud, I hate to ask-" He was cut off by Toothless rumbling in acknowledgment, before spreading a wing over Hiccup and by extension Rand, both of whom were standing in the sheltered patch directly beneath the base of the tree. "Thanks. You read my mind."

That was met with a dismissive snort. Toothless looked pointedly at them, and then at the soaked and muddy ground.

"Yeah, this stinks." Hiccup laughed bitterly as he sat down, holding up Toothless's wing like a tent, despite the obvious futility of the action. Toothless's wing likely weighed more than Hiccup did by several hundred pounds.

"Almost makes me wish we had just gone home last week." He looked over at Rand. "We were supposed to be meeting a certain tribe's chief a while away from here, and he requested that we come alone."

"And you did?" Rand hadn't taken this man for a fool. "What if it was a trap?"

Hiccup shrugged. "We didn't really... consider that. It was a great excuse to get away from everything for a while." His face fell. "We are both leaders. And I'm pretty sure neither of us wants to be."

Toothless nodded at that.

Rand knew that feeling far, far too well. "But running headlong into possible danger to get away from it?"

Hiccup smirked. "It's kind of what we do. Doesn't matter anyway in this case. The negotiations were supposed to last several weeks. But they took one look at Toothless and signed the first treaty we could come up with." He pointed at Toothless. "I'm the negotiator, and apparently he's the convincer."

Toothless growled lightly, showing his teeth.

"So anyway, we had some time to kill. Which is why we're here." Hiccup looked questioningly at Rand. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to find a purpose." Which was true. The world he had saved had no real place for him. That nagging feeling inside him wouldn't let him settle down into obscurity. He needed to be doing something, something useful.

There was no response to that. Hiccup looked around, seemingly searching the soaked underbrush for something. "Well, for the next five minutes, our purpose is finding firewood."

That turned out to be a difficult task. The forest was soaking wet and the rain was still falling. Eventually, they settled for waterlogged kindling and wood, despite the horrible amount of smoke both would produce.

Or so Rand thought. But when the pile had been assembled, Toothless stepped forward and began... heating it?

Hiccup watched in something approaching awe. "He's never done this before." Toothless was huddled over the pile, his mouth glowing with a blue flame. That flame, however, wasn't jetting or firing out at the pile. He was simply holding the position, his wings trapping the heat.

After a few wet minutes of that, Toothless shook his head, and finally set the pile alight with a tiny blast of blue fire. It burned stubbornly, and...

"He was drying it out." Rand laughed, huddling closer to the new source of warmth. "So that it wouldn't smoke."

"Yeah." Hiccup scratched Toothless's neck. "Good work."

That gesture brought something to the forefront of Rand's mind. Something important. "Hiccup?"

"Yes?"

"How do you see him? Toothless."

Hiccup frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Do you see him as an animal? A pet?" Rand honestly wasn't quite sure.

Both man and dragon snorted in unison. Hiccup answered sarcastically. "I think he sees _me_ as a pet sometimes."

Toothless crooned happily, grabbing Hiccup with his mouth and front legs. There was a flurry of movement, and Hiccup ended up ensconced in Toothless's wings and paws, being held like a small child against the chest of the now sprawled out dragon. Toothless purred.

Hiccup shrugged. "Yeah, definitely not my pet."

He flicked Toothless's paw off of his shoulder. "And I'm not yours either." He looked up at Rand. "Honestly? He's my best friend. And I'm pretty sure that holds true for him too. But more than that. Brothers, really. That fits."

There was a very deep and exaggerated nod at that. Toothless met Hiccup's eyes as he did so.

Hiccup smiled. "Yeah, I thought so. Despite everything, brothers." His voice fell. "Despite everything I've done to you."

Toothless's face fell as well. He clutched Hiccup a bit closer and whined, closing his eyes.

"And everything you've been forced to do." Hiccup put a hand on Toothless's head. "Stop blaming yourself."

Toothless's eyes snapped open, and he regarded Hiccup with a massively offended look. He poked Hiccup with a claw.

Hiccup snorted, looking down at the claw. "I wish I could take my own advice." At that point, he seemed to remember that Rand was there. "But yeah. Brothers, in answer to your question."

"Does everyone around here-"

"No." Hiccup's voice was cold. "We're changing that, one island at a time, but most people see them as mindless animals or demons. To be hunted, killed, bought and sold dead or alive. To be feared, hated."

Rand was struck by the parallels. Channelers had been feared, hated, and in many cases hunted and killed. And the Seanchan still leashed and treated channelers like animals, like property. Mat had, by all appearances, been unable to change that yet. So similar. "Is that your destiny?"

He had spoken softly, but Hiccup had heard him. "What?" He smiled wryly. "I don't believe in destiny. Life is what we make it. I'd rather be responsible for my own actions."

Rand shrugged. "I would like to believe the same. But I can see it." He decided to explain that tiny piece of himself. "Where I come from, we call them Ta'veren. Shapers of the pattern. Men who shape the world around them, a little or a lot. The world... bends to what they need, sometimes." How to describe this accurately? "The unlikely is likely around them. Lucky shots, coincidences. Nothing impossible happens. Just the implausible. And the stronger Ta'veren a person is, the more obvious the effect."

Hiccup seemed immensely troubled by that. "If it's just a lot of coincidences, how can you be sure of anyone being that?"

Rand smiled. "Because some people can see them. It's a rare skill, but to those who have it, Ta'veren glow to their eyes. The stronger the glow, the more powerful the individual is." He met Hiccup's eyes. "I am one of those people, now. I can see it." He noticed that Toothless was staring intently. "I can see it in both of you."

"We... glow?" Hiccup seemed to be having trouble accepting that. "Seriously? How do I know you're not crazy?"

"Besides the fact that I am not the only one with this ability? I have no reason to deceive you. And it doesn't really matter anyway. Just an indicator that you are both important, in the grand scheme of things."

Toothless snorted, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, we know that much." Hiccup laughed, watching Toothless. "The famous Dragon Conqueror. Or Dragon Trainer. Or Dragon Whisperer, Ambassador, Master. Ask someone and you'll get a name. No idea which one. Probably Conqueror. That stuck for some reason, despite me not doing any conquering whatsoever."

Rand grimaced. "I am far, far too familiar with the ways of rumor. Don't even bother trying to correct it for most people. They won't believe you. And those horribly inaccurate stories about how you're some sort of monster, or the savior of humankind, and everything in between? They're never going to go away." That, he had realized, was inevitable.

"Eh, not really a priority for me anyway." Hiccup settled down under Toothless's wing, some distance from the fire. "This rain isn't letting up. We should get some sleep."

How do you know that?" Rand was looking up at the clouds.

"This is the archipelago. It snows nine months of the year and hails the other three. That's an exaggeration, but not by much." Hiccup noted how Rand was still sitting by the fire. "Are you..."

"No. I'll keep watch." Rand shifted, facing away from the man and dragon, out towards the forest. "Something here doesn't feel right. And someone should always be on watch."

"Well, if you insist. Should we take your place at some point?"

"No." Rand was fairly good at operating without much sleep, after several months of travels in which it wasn't safe to stay too long in one place, due to local wildlife. He needed time to think. "I've got it." And so after a few minutes, he was alone with his thoughts. Of which there were plenty.

This land was amazingly strange. Not in vegetation or landscape. But dragons... Rand wasn't entirely sure how to think of the only dragon he had met. Toothless somehow managed to interact with his rider in ways that would in any other situation be demeaning to one or the other, yet for some undeniable but intangible reason were not. Being scratched like a dog, or wrestling each other around. And yet, all the while, they somehow managed to treat each other as equals. What was that like? Being so close to someone one couldn't even hold a direct conversation with? It must involve quite a bit of trust.

Something, Rand noted sourly, he still had problems with personally. Years of entirely justified paranoia had left a mark. Trust did not come easily, or at all in most cases. Like now, for instance. He was sitting in such a way as to be able to see both the forest around them and to keep an eye on the man and dragon asleep nearby. His hand on his sword hilt, just in case. All done without thought. That wasn't a good thing. Especially because he felt he should be able to trust these two, of all people. They had no reason to attack him, were in his debt, and seemed in the case of Hiccup almost reluctant to fight at all. But he still was wary.

It was tiring, having no one to trust. Who did he trust, now? Min, Elayne, Aviendha. The three women who shared his heart. Them, of course. Lan, Mat, Perrin, Nynaeve, Tam. His friends and father. But that second group thought he was dead. They had mourned him, watched his body burn on a funeral pyre. So clearly, he didn't trust them completely. Else he would have let them know he wasn't really dead. Min, Elayne, and Aviendha knew because they had bonded him as a Warder. That link hadn't ever broken, as death would have done. They would each know he was alive, and if they desired be able to find him anywhere in the world, led by the bond.

But they weren't with him on his travels. Aviendha was leading the Aiell as a Wise Woman, as they settled into their new roles as enforcers of his peace. Elayne was busy ruling Andor. Min was probably still with the Seanchan, keeping an eye on Mat and Fortuona. None of them had followed him yet.

So, no one. No one he trusted on these travels. And... a slowly growing desire to find a new purpose. He'd fought so long and so hard for the last one. The lack of a true goal was starting to bother him. It didn't have to be big or important. Just to contribute in some way to improving the world. He might have found it here.

Not helping this strange duo directly, interfering, offering his advice unsolicited as if he knew better. That, he was well aware, would be moderately pointless. He had always resented most of the 'advice' more properly known as manipulation that had been given to him from others in his time. It wasn't much help. But Hiccup and Toothless could definitely use help of some sort.

That path of thought brought Rand to an interesting question. What did these two need, that he could contribute? To answer that, he needed to know more about them. Tomorrow, maybe.

The hours passed. Rand kept watch. Though the rain mostly let up, it didn't stop completely. The constant soft patter of water on foliage was a soothing sound. As was the bellows-like breathing of the dragon nearby. Toothless certainly seemed to trust Rand, despite knowing very little about him.

It was past midnight. Rand wasn't nodding off, but the night now had a surreal quality. Something had changed. It was a feeling, something honed by paranoia and instinct over the years. They were not alone.

Rand eased his sword in the scabbard. But the... presence didn't really feel threatening. The mood of the area was apprehensive, but it almost felt like it wasn't quite aimed at him.

He turned his head, moving so slow as to be imperceptible. Scanning the forest almost perfunctorily. There was no sense of threat, still, which confused him.

Forest. A tree. tangled underbrush. Large blue eyes, staring.

Rand stopped himself from flinching, from reacting, from attacking. Those eyes felt familiar. And they weren't directed at him anyway. They were pointed straight at Toothless.

In a moment of lucidity, Rand examined what he could see around those eyes. In the pale moonlight, the large oval-shaped head looked white and... very familiarly shaped.

The pupils of the eyes were widening slowly, expanding from slits to rounded ovals. That familiar head tilted slightly. It started inching forward, pushing out of the plants towards Toothless's outwardly sprawled wing.

Toothless shifted in his sleep, and the head jerked back, before resuming its journey.

Rand spoke, almost to quietly to be heard. "What do you want?"

The head jerked back, staring at him in shock. He noticed in that split second a very familiar profile of ears and oddly shaped nubs. Then it vanished.

"Wait!" Rand hissed, standing up. But the dragon, for that was what it was, had already vanished. Making not a trace of noise audible over the melodic pattern of the rain. He stared after it.

"Why?" This entire encounter didn't make sense.

Returning to his spot by the fire, Rand considered what he knew. Which was almost nothing. Answers would arrive with the sun, when the ones who knew this part of the world woke up. Until then, he'd keep watch.

A few hours later, the head returned. Rand caught a brief glimpse of those same features before it vanished again. It must be scared of something. Probably him, to be honest. That was a bitter thought. Even in a place he wasn't known, he was feared.

Dawn broke, and with it rose the man and dragon. Hiccup yawned, taking in the fact that the sun was partially visible, but the rain clouds were still heavy and brooding. "Great. We're not out of the storm yet. No way we're going anywhere until that lifts."

Rand met his gaze levelly. "Hiccup. I have a question."

"Yes?"

"There was a dragon here last night. It came twice, and both times disappeared when it noticed me."

"Really?" Hiccup was up and alert now, looking around and nudging Toothless fully awake. "Describe it, if you can."

"Blue eyes, smooth white skin and scales from what I could see, which wasn't much."

That seemed to stump Hiccup. "Smooth white scales..." He was mumbling to himself now, though Rand could still hear it. "But this is no place for a Snow Wraith, and that's the only one I know of with white scales at all..." Looking up, he frowned. "Anything else you saw?"

Rand nodded. "It had those same ears and nubs, and the same facial structure. Is that common among dragons?" He pointed at Toothless, who was sniffing the air thoroughly at the moment.

Hiccup bolted upright, startling both man and dragon. "No, not at all!" He was smiling. "You're serious? Ears and nubs?"

"Yes?" Rand knew Hiccup and Toothless were Ta'veren, so he wasn't so surprised as to where this was heading. The unlikely became likely. "Was it a Night Fury, do you think?"

"I don't know. But no other dragon I've ever seen looks anything like Toothless." Hiccup was grinning. "We're going to be stuck here a while anyway."

Toothless was sniffing around a patch of the forest now, intensely focusing on it.

Rand looked over. "That's where it was standing."

The Night Fury seemed almost confused now, searching more intently, rooting through the undergrowth, following that elusive scent. Something he smelled was too interesting to ignore. He gradually worked his way into the forest, speeding up as he went.

Hiccup laughed, following the dragon. "Come on, let's see what he finds." The three of them worked their way through the forest, following a more and more excited Toothless as he followed the scent.

After a time they reached a ridge of sorts, looking down on a half-moon bay, a crescent of stone and dirt that merged with the ocean, a beach without sand, several dozen feet below them, the ridge the edge of a small vertical cliff.

Rand approached the edge, crouching beside Hiccup and Toothless, who were both staring down as if awestruck. He looked over and understood what held their attention.

Only having one frame of reference to how dragons looked, Rand might have assumed all dragons shared similar qualities. There were three dragons in the odd bay, one in the water, one sleeping on the rocks in the sun, and the third prowling along the cliff edge, almost directly below them. All three of them were white, with the same body shape as Toothless, those same nubs and ears, four legs, two large wings. In the sunlight Rand thought he could see a glimmer of red on the sleeping dragon, a faint flash belying the pure white scales. The swimming dragon had a lighter, pink tint to it when the light hit.

As they watched, the sleeping dragon stirred, before barking at the one in the water. The swimmer returned to the rock, gesturing and warbling, though the sound was faint from this distance. The one that had been sleeping rose, revealing a fourth dragon, one smaller and apparently energetic, as it rose and began running in random circles, the sunlight glinting orange off of it at certain angles. The two larger dragons interacted with it, playing happily.

The one prowling at the edges of the bay glanced back at the other three every once in a while, but never joined them, continuing its patrol.

Rand looked over at Hiccup, who was staring with an expression of utter awe on his face. Toothless, had a similar expression, though as Rand watched, he could see the Fury only had eyes for one of the new dragons. The one that had been swimming, with the pink tint.

Rand smirked. That look required no interpretation, despite the species difference. He wondered absently which of these three had come to the camp the night before. Somehow, he was pretty sure it was the pink-tinted one, despite not having been able to see the tints in the moonlight, and lack of any other clear differentiating features.

Hiccup broke the silence by elbowing Toothless and smiling as he whispered. "Why don't you go down there and introduce yourself, bud?" His voice was at once encouraging and amused.

Toothless slapped Hiccup with his tail, before eyeing the dragons below.

"I'm serious." Hiccup sat down, crossing his legs. "This one's on you. We'll follow once they trust you a bit."

Rand looked down at the dragons, who were still unaware of their presence. "That sounds like a good idea." He had no idea how dangerous dragons could be. Something told him that even fighting in self-defense here would be a terrible thing.

Toothless wavered, before purring and departing the cliff edge, going to find a way down into the bay without just dropping into the middle of it.

Hiccup and Rand saw Toothless creep in through a depression in the far wall. None of the other dragons had seen him yet.

"How will this go?" Rand asked, watching with interest.

"Honestly?" Hiccup frowned. "I have no idea. They're so much like him in looks, but I really don't know anything about how Furies interact. I just hope it goes well."


	3. Chapter 3

Hiccup and Rand watched from a hidden ledge as Toothless worked up the courage to introduce himself to what might be the only others of his kind.

Toothless visibly hesitated in the entrance to the bay, shuffling to the side and flaring his wings, flapping a few times.

Rand could honestly say he'd never before seen a dragon procrastinating, stalling for time. Body language apparently carried over pretty well, for him to so easily interpret those actions.

After a few minutes of that, Toothless barked softly, almost too quietly for the two observers to hear. But in the bay, the sound was clearly audible. All activity stopped, and four heads turned to look at the entrance, eyes widening as Toothless stepped out, walking down a slanted stone ledge with grace and-

Scratch that. Rand winced as Toothless lost his balance, probably because he was so distracted, going from calm and collected to a black mass tumbling the remaining distance to flat ground with a strangled yelp.

Hiccup groaned. "This is all too familiar..."

Toothless stood hastily, shaking his head to clear it. He warbled sheepishly.

The pink-tinted dragon was staring at him, no expression discernable on its face. The red-tinted one had moved to stand over the little one, though it didn't seem to see Toothless as an imminent threat so much as a potential one.

The fourth dragon, however, was a very different matter. It lunged at Toothless, snarling loudly. Toothless jumped back with a bark of surprise, and the two faced each other.

Now visible and in the sunlight, the fourth dragon was quite different, despite being the same species as the other three. It had likely originally been pure white, with a light blue tint, but grey scars marred the purity, darker lines crossing and intersecting at random, like those a child would scribble, no meaning or reason to randomness. It was missing its left ear, a ragged stump extending less than a fifth of the height of the other. Two scars crossed its forehead, forming a V-shaped grey mark. All in all, it exuded a far less perfect and unspoiled image, compared to its less flawed companions. Its actions fit its appearance.

Toothless and the scarred one faced off, though Toothless didn't seem to want to fight. The scarred one bit and clawed at him, but each time Toothless deftly avoided the strike, stepping aside, away, even jumping, but never taking another step backward.

After a few seconds of this, the pink and red tinted dragons began objecting, growling and trying to get the blue one's attention. The blue one wouldn't take his eyes off of Toothless, though the two were once again at a stalemate.

Hiccup watched all of this with worry clear in his eyes. He spoke, explaining what he knew to Rand. "As best I can tell, the dragons are a pack, of sorts. The blue-tinted one is the patriarch, the defender. Even though he is going a bit far."

Back in the bay, Toothless very deliberately shook his head and purred at the blue-tinted dragon, before casting a glance over the dragon's shoulder.

The blue-tinted dragon growled deeply, glaring at Toothless. It was interrupted by the red-tinted one, who nipped lightly at its tail. When it spun in surprise, the red-tinted one yowled angrily at it, flicking its ears at the pink one, who was still staring at Toothless.

Hiccup smiled slightly. "That makes the red one his mate. Only she could argue with him like that, and make him listen." His smile grew as the little dragon walked over and nudged at the blue-tinted one's paw. "Which makes that one theirs. I think the pink one is an older child of theirs too."

Rand nodded. "A female. Wait, are you sure Toothless is male?" There didn't seem to be any indication.

Hiccup snorted, holding in a laugh. "Pretty sure."

The blue-tinted dragon finished its odd nonverbal argument with the red one, and reluctantly stepped aside, but not before snarling angrily at Toothless. Toothless nodded agreeably and purred at the red-tinted dragon in thanks before approaching the pink one. She sniffed at him carefully, the two staying a few feet apart. Toothless took a step forward, and she stepped back hastily, barking at him. He wilted, but flicked his tail out, displaying the nearly invisible prosthetic.

The pink-tinted dragon didn't seem to know what to make of that. She came closer, disregarding the boundary she herself had set only moments ago, lightly pawing at the false tail. Then clawing at it, though Toothless growled and pulled it away as soon as he noticed her claws out and running along the tough fabric, not cutting but coming close.

The pink-tinted dragon warbled curiously, before spreading her wings and launching into the sky. Toothless looked after her before following.

Hiccup smiled smugly at that. "It took forever to get him to accept the automatic tailfin. He broke it the first time. I'll bet he's glad he listened now."

Rand wasn't sure what that meant, but there were more important questions to be asked at the moment, as Toothless and the other dragon flipped through the sky. "Any idea what they're doing?"

"My best guess is that she's making sure he's fit to be considered." Hiccup mused, watching the acrobatics above them. "Some other species do this. They don't pick mates immediately but test each other. I guess she's just as desperate as Toothless is, doing this right away. Usually, the dragons already are familiar with each other first."

"They both test each other?" Rand asked. The two dragons had landed again, Toothless matching the pink-tinted one's every flip and tight turn.

"Yeah. Now would be Toothless's turn." They both turned their attention to the dragons.

Toothless rumbled happily, flaunting his prosthetic tail now, to the interest of the older dragons. Also to the curiosity of the young one, who made its way over to sniff the tail. Toothless allowed that with a happy expression on his face. Until the young one bit his still intact fin, hanging on even as he shook the tail in an attempt to dislodge it. Toothless huffed in frustration, before using his at the moment toothless mouth to pull the little dragon off. There were no visible puncture wounds, so these white dragons evidently also possessed the ability to sheath their teeth.

The red-tinted dragon quickly took charge of the little one, pulling it away and scolding it. Toothless returned to his interactions with the pink one, entirely oblivious to how close the blue one had just come to attacking him.

Rand and Hiccup had both seen the tense moment in which Toothless pulled the little dragon off of his tail. The blue-tinted dragon had been prepared to pounce, mouth open. Hiccup knew what that meant for a dragon. If Toothless had made one wrong move, shown a single instant of aggression or anger with the little one, the blue-tinted dragon would have struck with the intent to kill.

Rand didn't relax when the danger passed. "That one is trouble."

"For now." Hiccup sighed. "He's really overprotective. Which doesn't bode well for us."

Rand was about to suggest they not go down there after all when Hiccup looked back down. An expression of confusion was quickly replaced by uncertainty.

"But I'm not sure Toothless sees that as an issue." Hiccup said, still looking down.

Rand looked back over to see both Toothless and the pink-tinted dragon flying rapidly towards them. He had barely enough time to scramble back before the two landed on the ledge, Toothless immediately getting in between Hiccup and the pink dragon. Leaving Rand unprotected to the side, though neither dragon seemed to be focused on him at the moment.

Rand was therefore in the best position to see what was happening from an outside perspective. He didn't move or draw attention to himself in any way. The situation felt almost fragile as if one wrong move could shatter it.

Toothless very deliberately approached Hiccup. The Night Fury's eyes were slits, and his manner threatening. Hiccup seemed confused but not scared, sitting defenseless in front of his friend. The trust he displayed never wavered when Toothless placed a paw on his chest, pushing him down, pinning him, though the confusion did.

Rand had to force himself not to intervene when Toothless pushed down, just light enough to not crush Hiccup's chest. He had no idea why the dragon was suddenly so aggressive, but to interfere was to destroy that little hope that Hiccup knew what was going on, that things were not as they appeared.

Hiccup wheezed feebly, still staring into Toothless's eyes.

Toothless beckoned the pink-tinted dragon over and deliberately motioned with his head at Hiccup. The pink-tinted dragon moved closer, looking into Hiccup's eyes as Toothless was. Whatever it was she saw there made her croon quietly, eyes softening.

Toothless abruptly inhaled and blasted a patch of earth right next to Hiccup's head, so close it likely singed some of his hair. Hiccup never even flinched. The other dragon was clearly shocked by that.

Rand didn't relax when Toothless moved back, removing the pinning paw from Hiccup's likely sore and bruised chest. He'd figured out what was going on by now, but that didn't stop him from wondering how anyone could be so trusting. Hiccup quite literally trusted Toothless with his life, even when it looked like Toothless was going to spend it in order to impress another dragon.

Hiccup sat up, groaning. "Bud, I think I understand why you did that, but next time, please ease up on my chest." He winced. "You could have broken something."

Toothless chuffed apologetically, eyeing the other dragon. After a moment he barked at her and quickly shoved his head against Hiccup's chest, leaving it there.

"Ow!" Hiccup rocked back. "Again with the chest?"

The other dragon was whining now, pawing at Toothless's side. He wasn't moving, leaving his head right there, within Hiccup's easy reach.

Things were beginning to make sense. Rand smiled as Hiccup ran his hands along Toothless's neck and chin. Hiccup knew what was happening too. The only one who didn't understand yet was the female dragon.

Toothless pulled back after a while, and then he motioned at Hiccup with his head. The female approached quickly, a paw lifted to-

A rumbling growl stopped her, informing her that he didn't mean for her to copy that part. Which left...

"He's testing her... by forcing her to trust me." Hiccup whispered, confirming what Rand had suspected. "First he showed that I trust him, then that he trusts me. If she wants to be with him, she had to prove she can trust me too."

The pink-tinted dragon visibly wavered, whining and looking imploringly at Toothless. She clearly didn't think very highly of making herself vulnerable to a human. Toothless was firm and unyielding. After a long while, he sighed and began to turn away.

The female dragon quickly stuck her head within Hiccup's reach, butting against his chest hard in her haste. Hiccup flinched, but he clearly wasn't going to be the one who screwed this up.

Toothless purred reassuringly, but when the female began to pull away immediately, he growled. She froze. Apparently, this was not a quick test.

Hiccup smiled at her panicking blue eyes. "Nice to meet you." He slowly moved a hand into her line of sight, tentatively touching a white scale. "I'm not going to hurt you. My friend just wants to be sure you won't hurt me. Or be afraid of me."

Rand watched, feeling slightly... envious. Why, he wasn't entirely sure.

The female dragon gradually relaxed as Hiccup ran his hands along her face and head, working his way down to her neck once she was comfortable with him. Toothless watched happily, and after a few minutes warbled softly, presumably saying the female dragon passed his test.

A grin grew on the faces of both Hiccup and Toothless when the female dragon ignored Toothless, enjoying the massage and not willing to end it. Toothless pawed at her side lightly, and she reluctantly withdrew, casting an approving glance at Hiccup as she did.

Hiccup smirked. "Scales and claws make human hands every dragon's favorite thing."

Rand nodded. "I'll remember that."

"There's way more to it than that." Hiccup spoke seriously. "What just happened is not normally how things go. Toothless did the hard work. Getting on good terms with wild dragons without that kind of help is much more complex."

"So how do things stand now?" Rand asked, seeing that the pink-tinted dragon was still staying away from him, but not Hiccup.

"Toothless is in, obviously." Hiccup stood and stretched. "Though I'm not entirely sure if they're mates yet. This is about where my knowledge of that process breaks down, because other species..." He grimaced. "They don't really understand the concept of privacy. So usually it's pretty clear." He carefully approached the female dragon, and she allowed him to touch her side. "She trusts me, thanks to him. I don't think he knows you well enough to vouch for you like he did me."

Rand nodded. "I'd assumed so."

"Hey, don't worry about that. I don't know if he would vouch for some of my other friends either." Hiccup laughed. "And they've ridden dragons for years."

"I am... well acquainted with not being trusted." With being reviled, feared, hated by most. This was simple unease compared to that.

"Well, we'll-" Hiccup was cut off by Toothless rumbling at the pink dragon, and the pink dragon barking loudly. "I don't know what they're doing now."

It became apparent that Toothless wanted to introduce the other dragons to Hiccup. Right then and there. The red-tinted one flew up, following the sound of the bark.

Rand wandered off a few hours later, once it became clear that Hiccup was in no danger... and that none of the wild dragons trusted him enough to let him within ten feet of them. Hiccup had absently promised to teach him how to gain their trust later, but right now the one-legged man was a bit busy.

The blue-tinted one was nowhere to be found, something that troubled Rand. He wasn't sure if it would accept Hiccup, though it looked like Hiccup would have the support of the other dragons when that question came up, but it wasn't around. Where had it gone?

He wasn't looking for it, wandering through the forest around the cliff edge the dragons had congregated on. That nagging feeling had grown. He envied the way Hiccup easily trusted and encouraged trust in others. Maybe it wasn't a big thing, but it was something.

His musing was quite rudely interrupted by a snarl. Looking up, he found the one he hadn't been looking for... in a tree... staring towards the cliff.

"You're spying on them." Rand laughed, not caring that the dragon was still snarling threateningly. "They're fine. Give it a rest." It was hard to feel threatened by a big, scarred white dragon... perched in a tree a bit too small for it.

That amusing image was dispersed when the dragon dropped in front of him, now much less comical and much more threatening. It shrieked at him, pouncing.

Reflex saved him, rolling to the side as claws like dagger sank into the ground where he had been standing. It was definitely trying to kill him.

A moment of indecision plagued him. Generally, when someone tried to kill him, he fought back. But killing this particular dragon was not only a risky plan, given he had no idea what it was capable of... It also felt wrong. He didn't know why that was. But after a moment spent dodging attacks, only his warder-enhanced reflexes keeping him alive, he realized that running might be the only thing that kept both of them alive. Because calming this dragon clearly wasn't an option, and fighting back would result in one of them dead. So his sword stayed in its sheath, and he ran.

It took quite a while to lose the angry dragon, and several hours to work his way back around to where they had been, scanning the unfamiliar forest for any signs of his pursuer back for another try. By the time he once again reached the now-abandoned cliff, the light was fading and it was raining again. The sight of a campfire down in one corner of the bay at least told him where Hiccup had ended up. He worked his way there.

Toothless was nowhere in sight. It was just Hiccup, sitting by a small fire, sheltered by a rock overhang directly above. Rand sat down heavily, soaking in the warmth that fought the numbing ice-cold of the rain and wind.

"Where did you go?" Hiccup asked, sounding worried. "I thought you were just exploring, but it looks like you got into a fight."

Rand glanced down and realized his clothing was stained and ripped, likely from those first few frantic seconds of conflict and the subsequent desperate escape. "Close."

"So..?"

"That blue-tinted dragon attacked me when I ran across him in the woods. It was either fight and kill him, die, or run. I chose to run, for some reason."

Hiccup sighed in relief. "Good. Anyway, if you had killed him Ruby would have hunted you to the end of the world. She seems persistent."

"Ruby?" Rand smiled.

"Ruby for the mother, Amber for the little girl with the orange tint, and Rose for Toothless's 'special friend'." Hiccup grinned at that. "Though, given those two left for a night alone a few hours ago, I think she's more than a friend."

"So that's why you're alone here." Rand looked around. "Did you name the blue-tinted one?"

"No." Hiccup frowned. "He doesn't seem to like me at all. I only name dragons if they want to be around me."

Rand scanned the area again, more intently this time. "Did he come back here?"

"He and the other two seem to sleep in a cave over there." Hiccup pointed at the far end of the bay. "He came back an hour before dusk, looking angry, though that seems to be his normal expression."

"Well, he did just lose a human in the forest, so I guess he has reason to be upset." Rand grimaced. It figured that he'd already made an enemy here.

"Then this is a good time for me to teach you."

"Teach me- why?"

"Because if he attacks every time he sees you, one of you is either going to die or be forced to leave. And you can't leave." Hiccup gestured to the ocean. "You would need a ride off this island, and I don't see any ships around."

"I will listen." Hopefully, there was a way to at least stop the dragon from attacking on sight.

"That's good." Hiccup poked the fire with a nearby branch, watching the sparks rise. "You're already two steps ahead of most of my friends when I taught them."

"How so?"

"First, you want to learn and believe I have something worth teaching. Second, you didn't grow up in a world where dragon-killing is the most honorable profession in existence." Hiccup's tone was light. "Really, you've got the basic idea, I think. Don't attack, don't act aggressively. Treat them like people."

"Yes," Rand recalled the blue-tinted dragon. "Though it didn't help me much today."

"Not with Mr. Overprotective. But none of the others minded you being around."

What? "They wouldn't even get near me. How is that not minding?"

Hiccup laughed at Rand's expression. "Well, Toothless and I were kind of the center of attention. But they didn't run you off, so clearly Toothless and I made more of an impression than we intended." That statement made Hiccup's face darken. "Actually, that's not good. Most humans are still dangerous. For them to so easily change their opinion of us, I don't think they've had many encounters before."

"So..."

"We might have just accidentally taught them that all humans are okay, or at least approachable." Hiccup winced, poking the fire more violently. "Well, if they come back with us to Berk, that won't be a problem. But staying out here, that's not a good idea to have."

"Men like those who captured me, I assume, would be just as happy to easily take these dragons."

"For live sale, skin, claws, or stuffed heads to mount on a wall." Hiccup agreed darkly, his face angry. "They'd make a fortune off of these..."

"On that note, what are they, anyway?" Rand asked.

"Not Night Furies, but very close. White, but White Fury just doesn't sound right." Hiccup shrugged. "Light Furies, I guess? Anyway. We need to take these guys back to Berk, to keep them safe. Which means we probably, as much as I wish it wasn't the case, need the blue one's cooperation."

"Oh." Rand sighed. "Well, we'd better get on with this then."

"Right. The most important thing is trust. You need to get him to trust you. That usually means you need to trust him too. How that works varies from dragon to dragon."

"But how do I do it?" Rand asked, worried that his own inability to trust would make an already difficult task impossible.

"I can't really explain it. You'll know, or figure it out. What I can tell you is how to make sure you know what's going on." Hiccup began drawing in the dirt between them with his stick. "Dragons use a lot of body language. When approaching a dragon, it's best to not even have a weapon. Even if you think they don't know about it. Whatever you do, don't draw your sword against him. Sometimes avoiding eye contact helps, but it depends on whether or not the dragon feels threatened by you."

"This doesn't seem very helpful," Rand muttered.

Hiccup heard him. "No, it isn't. Furies are smart, really smart. There's no easy path, no step-by-step set of instructions. It's something I can tell you the general idea of, but you have to figure out how to connect with that dragon on a personal level. So any advice I give on that part will inevitably fail." He was still sketching. "You don't have to make best friends with him. Just get him to respect and trust you. There are different levels of trust. The dragons of Berk live among us, doing what they will, trusting us to let them be. Some dragons have humans they live with, but don't let the humans ride them, though that's rare. Some rider and dragon pairs constantly argue, but work together because they trust each other, even if they don't respect each other that much. The best of the riders and dragons work together, know each other."

"You and Toothless are in that last group?"

"No." Hiccup surprised Rand with that answer. "The best example of that would be my wife Astrid, and her dragon."

"You're married?" That was news.

"Yup. The only reason she's not here is that she's in charge of the village while we're gone." Hiccup finished his drawing. "But every bond I've spoken of was encouraged, at best a friendship between two people. There's trust, but that trust was helped by the fact that someone told them it could be done, showed them how to connect." He gestured to the dirt.

Rand looked down and saw a remarkably detailed image of a boy holding out his hand, face turned away, eyes closed.

"We didn't know what was possible. Trust had to be absolute, or one of us was likely to kill the other, directly or indirectly." Hiccup spoke softly. "I trusted that he'd let me live, and he trusted me to return him to the sky, to do the impossible. We're closer than any of the others because they already had support, friends. We didn't. The risk increases the result, so to speak. So while Astrid and Stormfly are friends, Toothless and I are brothers. There aren't any other rider-dragon pairs that close, because the odds of surviving such a situation are pretty low."

"You did though?"

"Barely. I was this close to killing him, and five minutes after that he had me pinned to a rock, entirely helpless. One wrong move by either of us would have gotten one of us killed." Hiccup smiled, despite what he was saying. "It was worth it, but neither of us had anything to lose at that point. So anyway..."

"You were saying I don't need to get him to totally trust me. Just to stop attacking me."

"Basically." Hiccup winced. "That's not much help. There are a few more things I can tell you about dragon body language."

"Okay." Rand glanced at the moon. "Whatever will help." Maybe somewhere along the way, he'd figure out why this meant so much to him, why he felt he needed to succeed in at least pacifying the dragon the next time they faced off.


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn of that morning saw Rand waiting in the forest, just out of sight of the ledge. He had left before any of the dragons of the bay woke because the coming encounter was between him and the blue-tinted Light Fury. Hiccup had suggested he deal with the problem with the backup of the other Furies, but Rand was fairly sure that wouldn't help, in spite of all reason. He knew the Fury would come looking, in the same way he knew that interference would doom him.

That is to say, he didn't. There was just an annoying feeling in the back of his mind, pushing him to handle this personally, to not let others smooth the conflict for him. Maybe to prove to himself that he could manage to trust enough for even a ceasefire, that years of valid paranoia hadn't permanently destroyed his ability to lower his guard around anyone but those he knew before.

The day was overcast, but the storm that kept them here had gone. The wind blew, shaking the trees. Far above he could see a black shape swooping around with a bright patch, and he knew Toothless and Rose were back from wherever they had spent the night.

A rising growl informed him that the blue-tinted Light Fury had arrived. It had likely tracked him here by scent.

He turned to see it pacing and slowly circling him. Getting in between him and the rest of the forest, clearly intent on pinning him against the deadly drop the cliff presented. The dragon had learned from yesterday. There would be no running.

His sword was still in its sheath, as a compromise. He had not been willing to leave it behind but using it was not an option, according to Hiccup. He held up open hands, trying to convey that he was harmless.

That seemed to only make it angrier, the Light Fury backing him up quicker now, the two out in the open. When his foot hit the bare rock of the last few feet of cliff, Rand had had enough. He stopped, refusing to continue retreating. "I mean no harm, but I will not let you hurt me." A fatal drop definitely counted.

The dragon snarled at him, its eyes ice-cold slits of rage. What did he do to make it angry? He was clearly harmless at the moment, and such a battle-scarred creature would know that.

Something occurred to Rand. The dragon had gotten angrier when he proved himself defenseless. When he ran. When he dodged but did not strike back. It made no sense, but if that was the case...

He'd be entirely ignoring everything Hiccup told him. Everything except the most important part. That he'd know how to fix things if he just paid attention, that it was different for every person and dragon.

"Is that it?" Rand drew his sword, ignoring the increase in snarling. "You want me to fight? You have no idea who you're dealing with."

That comment was met with a derisive snort, and the Light Fury slashed at him with a clawed paw, clearly testing him.

Rand embraced the empty state of mind known as the void in an instant, banishing all emotion and feeling in favor of drastically improved perception. Though it wasn't banishing those things so much as removing himself from them. He knew they were there, but in this state, they could be ignored. Pain could be ignored. It was entirely possible to lucidly watch oneself die in this state of mind, removed from the pain but not the danger of injuries. Their last fight had proved he'd need the edge, along with that provided by the warder bond. He struck with the flat of his blade, slapping the scaled paw away.

A moment passed in which the two stood, motionless, judging each other in preparation for what was to come. Rand would later swear that the Light Fury had purred smugly before breaking the standoff.

The fight was fast-paced, the two combatants moving faster than would seem possible, reacting to each other as if they were reading minds. A Power-forged blade met claws and teeth as sharp as steel. Neither combatant hesitated, neither held back. A single lucky blow would kill or maim.

No such blows ever connected. It may as well have been a dance for all the damage done, not a single lunge or stab successful, no blood drawn by razor-sharp steel or claw. Seconds turned to minutes, once. Twice. Rand lost count of the time, fighting at the peak of his skill, managing to break even against one of the fastest dragons alive. Of that he was sure, despite only having seen a few. Anything faster than this would be impossible. Hiccup had told him Night Furies were the offspring of Lightning and Death itself. This thing certainly seemed to deserve that name, as lightning fit its speed. Eventually, one of them would slip. It was probably going to be him.

But Rand didn't care when a tail swipe he had been a fraction of a second too slow to avoid finally downed him, and a claw landed at his throat in an instant. "Call it a draw." His sword was at the dragon's stomach, point up to impale it.

The Light Fury looked down, shocked. Its eyes were wide, and not entirely hostile.

"So?" Rand asked, wondering what came next.

The Light Fury snorted, and backed up, retreating a few feet. It attacked again as soon as Rand had regained his feet, and the draining conflict continued.

This time, Rand could feel the dragon raging, anger powering its every blow, more strength going into every lunge and swipe. It didn't like being put in a position of defeat, even if mutually assured defeat. Neither did he. The fight lasted much longer this time, both of them having gotten the measure of the other.

It ended with Rand's sword being wrenched from his hands and thrown over the cliff as he was promptly pinned. The dragon leered at him, blood dripping from its mouth from grabbing the sword to throw it. Rand kicked pointlessly at the dragon over him, aware that any sign of giving up or fear would be met quite violently.

After a long minute, the dragon moved away, purring smugly. Mostly smugly. Rand thought he could see something different now, reflected in the way it watched him despite him being disarmed. Respect. He was no longer being treated as prey but as a threat.

That was... progress? Maybe? They weren't fighting at the moment, anyway. A good thing, too. Rand was wiped out. He began to sit down, but the dragon growled at him and crouched as if about to attack for the third time.

He pointed down. "You want a third round? Go get the sword you threw away. I'm not walking all the way down there and back up here for it." Who knew if the message would-

The Light Fury dove off the cliff, and returned a few seconds later with his sword, spitting it at him the moment it landed. Rand picked it up with a smile. "Alright, one more time." Who cared how tired he was. The dragon had to be just as tired.

Their final match lasted longer than either of the first two. Both of them were moving slower, reacting slower. They pushed themselves, unwilling to conceded defeat. Rand burrowed deeper into the void, trying to push shaking arms he could not feel and legs that ached with a pain he ignored, trying to get a leg up in the fight against the most equal opponent he'd ever fought. This final fight was one fought not in anger, but in stubborn refusal to concede.

Rand finally managed to end it, not so much by skill as by luck, taking advantage of a weak point shown long enough for his failing speed to exploit. The final fight ended with Rand's sword at the Light Fury's chest. He was too tired to gloat, to even acknowledge that he had won. The dragon was in much the same condition.

Without even thinking about it, Rand sat down, his unsteady legs landing him right next to the panting dragon. The two sat there for some unknowable amount of time, simply recovering some bare minimum of energy necessary for existing.

Of course, the second the Light Fury reached that bare minimum it shoved Rand away, knocking him over. He glared over his shoulder. "Was that necessary?"

The dragon blinked at him, before turning to face the other way.

Rand seethed as he sat up, staring at the still-hostile dragon who didn't even...

Wait. It had turned its back to him, deliberately leaving itself exposed. Subtle, but inarguable. It felt safe in turning its back on an someone who had just proven to be its equal and was still armed. Still dangerous.

Maybe they had made some progress after all. But how to show the dragon he returned even that little trust?

After a bit of thinking, he had it. He stood unsteadily, hefting his sword. Then, though a part of him screamed that his plan was suicidal, that he might still be attacked, he dropped it by the dragon and quickly moved to sit on the other side of the dragon's bulk, putting it between him and his weapon. They both looked out over the bay, silent.

A quiet rumble was the only acknowledgment his gesture elicited. Compared to a furious snarl, it was a definite improvement.

That state of neutrality lasted for hours, as the sun rose to its peak and began to descend. Rand and the blue-tinted Light Fury sat in silence, watching the other Furies and Hiccup spend time in the bay. Not the most entertaining view sometimes, but the Light Fury didn't seem to care.

Rand understood that. The dragon, from what he could tell, had a very simple purpose. Eliminate anything that harmed his family. That was why it had originally rejected Toothless, but now didn't even seem to mind him, or Hiccup. Why it had been patrolling the edges of the bay when they first found it. Why it had attacked him, though it didn't explain why they weren't still trying to kill each other.

It almost all made sense. Rand just needed to figure out why the fighting had stopped. Without knowing why he'd never be able to keep it like this.

But at the moment, other matters took precedence. Such as the fact that neither of them had eaten or gotten water all day. To make it worse, he wasn't sure where they could find fresh water. Hiccup was all the way down in the bay, a good twenty-minute walk from where they were now, so asking him would be inconvenient.

Rand decided to try something. He waved his hand in front of the blue-tinted Light Fury's face, pulling it back from an intentionally slow snap that might have taken the hand off of anyone with lesser reflexes. "We need water." Food wasn't as urgent.

The dragon stood after a long moment and began walking into the forest. Rand had no idea if it had understood, or even if it meant for him to follow, but he followed anyway. They moved slowly through the forest, both moving sluggishly.

An hour later, the Light Fury stuck its head into a small stream and did its level best to redirect the entire stream into its mouth. Rand laughed hoarsely and moved a few feet upstream to quench his own thirst. He still didn't know if the dragon had understood him. At least it was tolerating him.

The walk back was a bit faster, as their strength was returning. Rand wondered if the Light Fury would insist on a fourth round once they returned to the cliff edge, and his sword. His muscles felt like water, and surely the dragon felt the same, but who knew what drove the dragon to test him in such a way to start with.

They were both exhausted, though not debilitatingly so anymore. Maybe that was why neither of them heard it until it was too late.

An arrow arced through the air, striking the Light Fury in the shoulder. Rand by long-ingrained instinct dropped and was rewarded with an arrow passing overhead instead of passing through him. He had grown accustomed to no longer being able to channel, but times like this made him wish for his old power, to embrace Saidin and entangle the unseen archer in solid coils of Air, or just burn them alive with pure Fire.

Or, he realized as the Light Fury collapsed, to weave the complex combination of Spirit, Water, and Earth that allowed one to heal injuries or expel poison, though he had never been very good at that. Clearly, one of the two was affecting the Fury, whom he would not have believed could be downed by a single arrow.

He laid still, hearing a pair of boots approaching. There was no wariness in those steps, so clearly audible to his void-enhanced senses. Maybe the archer thought he had been hit, hadn't seen him duck at the last second.

That hope was quickly dispelled to be replaced by a much more solid one as a heavy boot was placed on his back. He heard a smug voice begin to speak. Smug, even though the speaker had made what might be a fatal mistake.

Rand moved, slipping out from below the boot and rolling, before slamming his elbow into the knee above the foot. A sickening crack resounded from the knee, and though his arm was numb from the impact, it had done far more damage to the archer, who collapsed with a scream of pain.

He didn't stop there. In a series of quick, brutal motions Rand had the archer pinned, and an arrow jabbed point-first at the archer's neck, an inch away from cutting his throat, the arrow taken from the archer's own quiver.

Rand eyed the arrowhead, which was covered in a green paste. Poison. He took out another arrow, putting more pressure on the shattered knee with one of his feet as he did so. Once the archer's scream had died off, he held the arrow up. "What does it do?"

The archer somehow managed to project an air of feigned innocence. "Nothin'!"

Rand looked over his shoulder, to see the Light Fury unconscious, breathing erratically. "Lies will get you killed. Slowly." He was no torturer, but this man definitely didn't know that.

"Nothin' to people, I mean! Most dragons, it just makes them go crazy for a few seconds, lose control and collapse."

"And..?" Rand gestured to the downed dragon.

"Furies, it kills. Slowly." The archer grinned, an expression somehow sadistic and pained at the same time. "Makes sure they don't get away."

"Antidote?" Rand lifted his foot, visibly preparing to slam it on the knee if the answer wasn't forthcoming. "You'd make more money from a live one." Hiccup had been sure of that, and it made sense. Rand listened carefully, still buried deep in the void. His emotions, as always, existed outside, failing to affect his actions directly. His voice was still cold and calm, as it usually was while in the void. but sometimes, the outside emotions, if they were strong enough, could creep into the void. Anger was there with him. It made the creepily calm voice dark and ominous.

"Back pocket left leg." Whatever the archer saw in Rand's eyes, resistance was now the furthest thing from his mind. "Half a bottle per dragon."

"If you are lying, I'll grind that leg into the ground, and then start on every other bone in your body. This is your last chance."

"I swear, that's the truth! You've got five hours before it kills the dragon! Their body just shuts down, and that's when the lungs go!" The archer was panicking. "I was jus' doing my job! Why do you even care!"

Rand located the antidote and stood. "He and I have a sparring match to finish." He had also taken the archer's shortsword. With a quick flick, he cut the man's throat. A small mercy, given the amount of blood he had noticed flowing from the badly shattered knee, bones tearing through the skin and letting loose a sickly stream of the stuff. The archer had been doomed the moment he placed his foot on Rand's back.

Not that he wouldn't have killed the archer regardless. An enemy was an enemy, and there was no way for him to restrain the man, though that shattered knee meant he hadn't been about to go anywhere.

Rand carefully pried the Light Fury's mouth open, thankful the retractable teeth were at the moment sheathed and poured roughly half of the bottle down its throat. An odd way to administer an antidote to something that would likely do its level best to kill the one bringing it back, under normal circumstances. Then he removed the arrow, snapping it and dropping it on the archer's body.

After a minute, a minute of waiting by a fresh corpse and an unconscious dragon, Rand was relieved to see those large eyelids slide open. True to character, the Light Fury jerked to its feet, lurching around to snarl at Rand.

Rand calmly directed its attention to the body. "I took care of it."

The Light Fury's eyes narrowed as it took in the sight and smell, the bloodied sword in Rand's hands, and the snapped arrow. It huffed in response to the gruesome scene, before setting off at a quick trot. Back to the cliff.

Rand followed, wishing they could go faster. The odds of a single dragon hunter here were low. There must be more, somewhere. The only dragons on the island were in the bay. The bay they had left unguarded for hours, on a quest for water.

Those thoughts were clearly similar to what was going through the Light Fury's head. It snarled, frustrated, and launched into the air, flapping laboriously and soaring out of sight. Leaving Rand to make his way to the cliff alone.

He didn't begrudge the dragon that. They barely had a mutual understanding. He only wished he could move faster himself. It would take a while to get back on his own.

But, to his surprise, he hadn't even been walking alone ten minutes before he was abruptly grabbed by the shoulders from behind, lifted by powerfully gripping claws curled around his upper arms up past the treetops, into the open air.

Dread struck him and didn't fade even as he recognized the blue-tinted white scales above him. If the Light Fury had come back to get him, that meant something had gone very badly. Something the prideful dragon had decided merited bringing in barely trusted backup. He was immensely glad he had kept the shortsword through the rough pickup, even if it was different enough to throw him off in fighting.

A muffled warble made him look up again. To see a familiar sword sticking out from between the Light Fury's jaws.

Rand laughed, despite the situation, and dropped the inferior sword he held to fall into the forest below. "Thanks!"

He no longer felt like laughing when they landed on that familiar cliff, both staring over the edge that just a few hours ago had shown peaceful scenes of general contentment.

A strange ship was anchored in the bay, with a large ramp leading from it to the shore. Men armed and armored like heavy soldiers were everywhere, swords and axes in abundance. There were at least fifty that Rand could see, though there might be more on the ship.

In the middle of the crowd of armed soldiers lay four dragons, three so swathed in ropes they couldn't move a muscle, but conscious. The fourth, the only black one, lay unrestrained and unmoving on the stone, eyes shut.

Rand couldn't see Hiccup anywhere, and he couldn't tell whether Toothless was dead, unconscious, injured, or dying from the same poison he'd saved the Light Fury from.

There was no question as to what they were going to do. Rand made eye contact with the furious Light Fury beside him and flicked his sword at the ones who so deserved their wrath. "We'll destroy them."

The blue-tinted dragon nodded, much to Rand's shock. But now was not the time to dwell on that.

"But we need a plan. Rushing in might work," and given how the two of them fought, it would definitely have worked were they both at full energy, "but it might get us, my friends and your family killed. So, got any ideas?"

The Light Fury snorted, looking down at the assembled enemy.

"Well, luckily for us, I do." Rand quickly laid out his plan in simple terms, knowing now that the Light Fury would understand. Then they parted ways to put it into action.

Rand strolled casually through the gap that let into the bay, confidence and strength emanating from him, from the way he walked to the ease at which his hand rested on the hilt of his sheathed sword. He continued to walk towards the closest group of Vikings, who stared at him in confusion.

Once he was close enough, he shouted loud enough for the entire bay to hear. "Send out your leader to talk or I'll kill you all myself!" Simple, direct, and ludicrous enough not to be taken seriously, though he was entirely capable of attempting and likely carrying out his threat.

After a moment a man parted the crowd. Rand frowned. This one looked the part of a nobleman, from the thin face devoid of scars to the carefully combed hair to the odd cultivated accent the man spoke in.

"You're tall, for a madman."

Rand looked down on the slightly shorter man as he stopped a few feet out of sword distance. "And you're short, for whatever you are."

"I assure you, I am exactly the median height of those in my profession." the man stated neutrally. "As I am the only one successful enough to truly count."

"Which would be?" Rand inquired, stalling for time.

"I hunt Night Furies, of course. And their lighter brethren, though those are not as fun." The man said happily, his voice tinged with a hint of cruelty. "And you, whoever you are, are here to witness my final triumph. Quite fortunate for you."

A fireball exploded on the other side of the cove. To Rand's surprise, though roughly a dozen of the soldiers immediately moved to engage the blue-tinted Light Fury, the man in charge seemed unphased.

"Another? It is no Night Fury. The lighter ones are never fighters." the man mused, not even looking behind him. "Allow me to introduce myself. Grimmel the Grisly. Sole executioner of the dark dragons of the night."

The time for stalling had passed. Rand took the offered hand and squeezed ruthlessly, crushing the weaker man's hand near the point of actually breaking bones. Grimmel was no warrior, not like Rand. Rand kept up as much pressure as he possibly could, meeting Grimmel's shocked and pained eyes in the moment before the storm.

"You made an enemy of me the moment you killed a Night Fury, though I didn't know it at the time." Rand smiled grimly, shoving Grimmel into the cluster of men around them, drawing his sword before anyone could react. "And if I still could use balefire, I'd burn your thread as far back as I possibly could, damn the consequences. But I'll have to settle for killing you."

The storm broke, attacks raining down from all sides. Rand moved like the wind, cutting down the unskilled fighters between him and Grimmel in moments, though more moved into the way.

For a blademaster, this was nothing. Even tired and winded, Rand had little trouble pursuing Grimmel back to the Furies, cutting a swathe of pain and death on the way there. Grimmel's men quickly learned fear, and then panic when those trying to flee him realized that the Light Fury was still fighting, and coming the other way. The two warriors converged on the Furies and Grimmel just as the shattered remnants of the man's soldiers broke, the few capable of fleeing limping or running to the ship.

Grimmel himself had pulled out a crossbow, and was pointing it first at Rand, and then at the Light Fury. Back and forth, unsure of which was the bigger threat.

Rand laughed at that. "One shot, two horrible deaths approaching. Your army demolished, your few remaining men aboard a ship that could be sunk in a moment. Tell me," he gestured at the carnage around them, "is this what you had in mind, calling yourself 'The Grisly?"

The cornered man responded by pointing the crossbow at the Night Fury behind him. "Kill me and it dies a slow death of poison."

"Wrong." Rand knew he had the antidote, the other half of what he had given to the Light Fury. But this needed to be played carefully. "And death isn't what you have to fear most. You will not survive this. The question is, will it be quick or worthy of your name?" He pointed at the Light Fury. "He'll do his best to make you suffer."

A thought occurred to him. "Where is your other prisoner? The human."

Grimmel didn't respond, even when Rand moved closer. His crossbow was still pointed at Toothless's head.

Rand could see the slightest twitch in Grimmel's face, a similar twitch in his finger, the one on the trigger. Grimmel knew he was dead. At that moment, it became clear what path Grimmel was going to choose. The only one that spited them despite everything, that completed the man's self-proclaimed mission.

Moving as fast as thought, Rand removed Grimmel's hand at the wrist, the crossbow dropping unfired with the hand as the man howled in pain, clutching the stump. The man's head followed the hand, dropping beside it.

Rand grimaced at the sight, though he'd seen infinitely worse. He quickly dumped the rest of the antidote in Toothless's mouth, thankful he didn't have to go retrieve more from one of the many corpses littering the stone and dirt of the bay. As he did the blue-tinted Light Fury eyed Grimmel's corpse. It deliberately kicked the body on its way to free its family.

Rand laughed hollowly. "You're a cold one, aren't you. Not that I blame you." Images flashed through his mind, memories. The cold, icy stare this dragon so often gave. The way it treated its enemies, raging in combat but cold afterward. Ice blue eyes.

"Ice." Rand stood, scanning the area for signs of Hiccup. "I think that name fits you." Hiccup had been here, and he probably wasn't dead. Hopefully wasn't dead. Maybe on the ship?

The ship had cut loose its anchor in order to escape quicker and was even now quickly moving out to sea. Quickly, to anyone who didn't know dragons. It was also, Rand knew, massively undercrewed now. It wasn't getting away or defending itself.

He and the newly-named Ice cut the Light Furies free. Rose immediately went to Toothless, whining, and pawing at his wings. Ice moved to stop her but she barked angrily at him, eventually shifting Toothless's wings enough to reveal...

Hiccup, also unconscious, having likely been knocked out at some point. Toothless must have collapsed on top of him, shielding him with his body.

A few awkward minutes were spent in the now horrific bay, waiting for Toothless to regain consciousness, so that they could go somewhere, anywhere else. When Toothless did wake up, Rand noticed that the dragon seemed upset to see the carnage around them, though he spit a small fireball at Grimmel's corpse. Clearly, Toothless knew something of who and what Grimmel claimed to be, though how was a mystery Rand wouldn't know the answer to unless Hiccup explained what had happened. At the moment they were all content to take an unconscious Hiccup out of the bay.

Ice turned to look at Rand, after eyeing the battlefield. His eyes were solemn.

Rand nodded. "Glad to help."

After a moment, Ice closed his eyes and stuck his snout out, towards Rand but not quite touching. The other half of the gesture of trust Toothless challenged Rose to do with Hiccup.

Rand knew what this meant. He solemnly placed his hand over the V-shaped intersection of scars on Ice's forehead.

Trust had been forged on the battlefield, in combat. For warriors like them, scarred physically or mentally by violence, maybe that was the only way it could truly be created.


	5. Chapter 5

A once-peaceful bay drenched in blood, the few survivors sailing away as fast as they could manage, escaping the cold vengeance that had torn their compatriots apart so easily. A black dragon carefully grabbing an unconscious human by the shoulders, preparing to take him and the other innocent dragons away from the horrific sight. Rand registered all of these as vaguely as he did the decapitated body of the man who was responsible for it, his attention focused on the battle-scarred and battle-hardened dragon in front of him. The one he had called Ice. The one that in many ways reminded him of himself. His dragon now, though the way Hiccup spoke of it, saying he was the dragon's rider was just as accurate. That title was a new one. One he liked the sound of.

One that, unlike most titles he had been stuck with, was a literal designation. Or, was supposed to be. He wasn't sure if Ice would let him ride, even to follow the dragons out. The dragon was as stubborn as he was, and he didn't know how far-

Ice ended his contemplation by smacking him in the back with his tailfin, knocking Rand against his side. The implication couldn't have been more obvious if Ice had...

Oh, wait. Rand only now noticed that Ice was indeed staring at Toothless's saddle, trying to direct Rand's attention. Yup, no way to be clearer than that. He quickly clambered onto Ice's scarred back before the dragon decided to push him up.

Ice took off, carefully balancing so that Rand didn't fall off, despite the lack of saddle. This seemed to be the signal for the other dragons to fly, Toothless carefully carrying Hiccup in his paws. The group, after a few minutes of flying directly away from the bay, followed Ruby to the top of the odd rocky ledges that marked the only high point of the island. They set down there, Ruby immediately comforting a quite traumatized Amber, who was only now panicking. Ice dropped Rand off by Toothless and assisted the other Light Furies in calming the little one.

Rand nodded at Toothless, who was pawing at Hiccup's still unconscious form, clearly worried. "He should wake up soon."

Toothless shot Rand a wary glance, something new in the dragon's eyes. Fear.

That hurt, though it made sense. Toothless had now seen the damage Rand could do, if not while it happened. How to reassure the dragon?

"I still mean you both no harm," Rand said, pointing at his sword. "That was to protect you."

Toothless blinked, before grinning widely, a gesture as unnatural as it was amusing on such a wide and inhuman face. He nodded at Rand, before casting a glance at Hiccup. The message was clear. Toothless thought Hiccup needed protecting.

Thinking back, Rand had to agree. Further thought was interrupted when Toothless stiffened, likely hearing something Rand did not. The black dragon abruptly licked Hiccup full across the face.

Hiccup spluttered, gagging and coughing as he sat up. "Really?! As soon as I wake up!" He wiped his face off awkwardly with the gauntlets of his scale armor. "Though I guess waking up at all is a relief..."

Rand laughed sadly. "True."

With that Hiccup seemed to become aware both of where they were, and where he by all rights should be. Still under Toothless, or captured by Grimmel and his men. "What happened?"

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell me that," Rand said, postponing his side of the explanation.

"Well, you and the blue-tinted Light Fury were off doing whatever all day, so we hung out in the bay. A couple of hours ago all the dragons around me just dropped. I saw archers on the cliff. Then that ship sailed in from out of sight, and..." Hiccup's jaw clenched. "I had been tackled by Toothless when the arrows started falling. Staying under him seemed smart. I heard some jerk monologuing about finally completing his mission, killing off every Night Fury in the world. Then he said something about letting Toothless die of the poison, and before I could do anything someone must have shoved Toothless aside because his body shifted and slammed my head against the rock."

Rand waited, seeing that Hiccup wasn't done talking. That was about what he'd expected, and it explained the archer in the woods. They were lucky they had only run into one, though how Grimmel knew anyone was in the bay was another question.

Hiccup clenched his fists, eyes narrowing. "But that's not important." He got up and got onto Toothless, face dark. "I've got-"

"Nothing to worry about," Rand said flatly. "The self-proclaimed executioner of Night Furies is..." Actually, looking at Hiccup's face... "You want to kill him."

"I don't kill people if I can help it." Hiccup gritted out, his hands gripping the saddle. "But I'll gladly make an exception for this Grimmel the Grisly if what he said is true."

"I'd advise you don't bother." Rand smiled darkly. "It'll be hard to kill a headless corpse."

Hiccup blinked, confused for a moment. Then the meaning of what Rand had said sunk in. He slowly dismounted, eyeing Rand carefully. "You killed him."

"After decimating his men, and cornering him. He was going to shoot Toothless, so I removed the offending hand, and then finished the job." Rand spoke bluntly. "Justice is served, though I think Ice doesn't agree. He'd likely want to make Grimmel suffer a while first."

Hiccup said nothing for a few moments, looking as if he was deciding what to say. He settled on "you named him Ice? I'm guessing you two are on good terms now."

"Better than good, I'd say." Rand nodded at Ice, who was approaching them, the other Light Furies following. "Though the way we bonded... not normal, I think."

"How so?" Hiccup glanced at Ice. "Did he throw up half a fish and make you eat it? I might have forgotten to mention that."

"No..." Rand laughed at the very idea. Ice also looked personally affronted. "I'll tell you later. Has the storm dissipated enough for us to leave? Spending the night in the bay is a bad idea, so we might as well get started traveling back."

"Why is it a bad idea?"

Rand nodded mutely at Ice, gesturing to the dragon's blood-soaked paws and muzzle, though Ice had at least tried to wipe the blood off his face. "The bay is a thousand times worse. No one camps out in the middle of a battlefield."

That shut down the conversation, Hiccup's face going slightly green. He moved aside to make sure Toothless was good for a flight. Rand was otherwise occupied. Ice bumped his back and proceeded to paw at Rand, deliberately staining his already ragged clothing with old blood. Rand got the hint and did his best to wipe the bloody paws with a rag, though water was for the moment not readily available.

"So independent, so deadly." Rand griped, cleaning off a wickedly sharp claw. "Needs a human to wipe his feet."

Ice chortled, a deep and mocking sound.

"I think I took out more of them than you did," Rand added nonchalantly.

Ice slapped him with his one good ear.

"Fine, next time we'll keep count. I assume you can count."

That was met with a subtle nod. Rand noticed that Ice had made sure Hiccup wasn't watching before nodding.

"You don't want him to know." Rand realized. Though he wasn't sure why Ice cared. Toothless clearly understood about as much, though he and Hiccup communicated in a less straightforward and more intuitive way, so it wasn't so obvious.

Ice rumbled a confirmation of that. He looked almost pleadingly at Rand, a far cry from the offensively arrogant dragon Rand knew.

"Your secret is safe with me." Rand dropped Ice's paw. "There. Done." The rag he had borrowed from Hiccup's saddlebag was a dark, dripping red. But Ice was once again a pure white only marred by scars. Rand cautiously reached up to Ice's face, wiping a bit of blood off the dragon's forehead. He didn't want to know how that had been achieved.

Ice eyed him oddly, before purring very quietly and slightly leaning in.

Rand knew what that meant. He managed to keep a straight face as he 'cleaned' the rest of Ice's face, feeling the proud dragon's approval of his actions. Ice liked human hands to scratch between his scales, just like any other dragon. Even if he didn't want anyone else to know.

After the 'cleaning' was done, Rand tossed the bloody rag off the odd stone hill. A red blot on the grey stone below. Hiccup still wasn't done, so he sat down in the middle of the small plateau and closed his eyes.

A huff of air on his knee made him open his eyes. Amber, the little Light Fury, was standing in front of him, her eyes wide and slightly fearful. Ice stood behind her, nudging her forward. He made eye contact with Rand.

She had seen everything, restrained but not poisoned or unconscious. Apparently, even the consoling of her family wasn't quite enough to convince this little one that he was safe.

He carefully reached out and held a hand, palm-up, in front of her. Hopefully, his close contact with Ice these last few minutes was enough to leave a scent on him. Hiccup had explained a bit about how dragons used scents to make connections. If he guessed correctly, this would help.

She sniffed his hand, pupils dilating slightly. Then she looked back at Ice, who grunted impatiently and nodded.

Rand smiled as the little one rubbed her head along his leg and side like a big cat, before trying to stand on his lap to reach his face. Apparently, she didn't mind him anymore. Which made sense, given he smelled like her father, who was clearly no stranger to violence. Likely, she associated the two anyway. So he was accepted as an extension of Ice.

He was more than fine with that. Looking at Ice, he understood. "You protect them with your life." One piece of the puzzle slid into place. "I will too."

Ice nodded solemnly. The unspoken corollary was that should Rand ever want to protect someone, Ice would be there to help.

That was what their bond was formed on. A mutual understanding, the knowledge that they were both capable of terrible things in the name of protecting the ones they loved. The knowledge that it couldn't always be done alone. That having someone who understood and accepted those facts was a welcome change from isolation.

Hiccup waved from Toothless's back. "We're ready to go. You coming?"

Rand shooed little Amber over to Ruby and vaulted onto Ice's back, more gracefully this time around. "We're ready. Lead the way."

Hiccup's mouth was slightly open in shock. "I missed a lot." He finally managed to say. "Be careful not to fall off."

The trip back took a bit over three weeks, traveling only a part of each day to accommodate Amber, who was too small to fly all day and to large to safely carry. Rand saw more of the world in a week during that journey than he would have in a month in the past, walking or riding. He was pretty sure he'd never be able to ride a horse again, not without dying of boredom and impatience.

Truthfully, by the time they reached Berk, Rand had decided he was done exploring. The rest of the world was well and good, but this isolated corner held more wonder than the rest combined.

Berk was just as amazing. He didn't laugh when Hiccup described it as a 'dragon and Viking utopia' on their approach. It was a vibrant island of color, yellows, reds, and blues painting the place, along with some of the oddest and densest wooden buildings he'd ever seen.

As they got closer, Hiccup began explaining that the island had once only housed a small village. But apparently, the village of Berk had expanded rapidly, to the point that they were in the beginning stages of dangerously bad overcrowding.

Hiccup sighed sadly. "We need to expand. Another island, a second village. I'll hate to see anyone go, but it's not like they'll be far away. That's what I was doing, or supposed to be doing. The tribe I was negotiating with had a pretty close candidate. They pretty much gave it away in exchange for assurances that we'd remain peaceful unless attacked."

Then Hiccup seemed to change gears. "Oh, and this should be interesting. Wild dragons entering Berk for the first time go through a bit of an initiation ceremony. Hang on."

Rand looked over at Ruby, who was flying to Ice's right, and Amber, who was between them. Both seemed nervous. "Is that a good idea?" Rose also looked a bit nervous, though Toothless was doing his best to encourage her.

"It's not really up to me. They don't mean any harm." Hiccup pointed towards the massive, diverse flock of dragons rising to meet them. "And there's no way I could stop that. Toothless could, but he doesn't seem to want to."

With that, the flock was upon them. Rand hunched over in the saddle, feeling half-deafened by the cacophony of friendly screeches and roars. Dragons of all shapes and sizes swarmed around them, occasionally running into each other and hastily correcting themselves. It might be well-intentioned, but it was overwhelming to the Light Furies, who clearly weren't even used to being around other dragons, let alone a massive swarm.

Amber wailed in distress, faltering in her flight as multiple dragons got way too close. That set Ice off, and he snapped angrily at the cloud of dog-sized dragons close to Amber. Ruby swooped over and grabbed Amber, picking her young one up out of the sky with all four paws, before folding her wings and dropping out of the swarm for a moment.

Rand stared in utter shock as Ruby began to spin, still with Amber ensconced within her wings, and fired a blast of the odd fire Hiccup had called plasma. Ruby dove through the superheated cloud of flame... and didn't come out.

She didn't come out at all. Not safely, not unconscious. When the cloud dissipated, she and Amber were gone. Completely, as if they'd never existed.

Ice growled, angry but not particularly upset, which calmed Rand a little. He vaguely noticed Rose dropping from Toothless's side to do the same thing, just as Ice dove.

Rand panicked when he realized what Ice intended... while he was still aboard. "Ice! I'm not fireproof!"

Ice grumbled in frustration, but pulled up and sped up, racing towards Berk with his wingtips skimming the waves. The flock of dragons was too slow to follow. Hiccup and Toothless pulled up close to Ice, flying the same direction, but growled and sped up. Toothless easily kept up with him even then.

"What was that?!" Hiccup yelled across, barely audible over the wind. He had his black helmet down.

Rand wished he had a similar helmet. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone form a coherent response at this speed. There was nothing he could say anyway.

Ice swerved, heading around the population center of Berk towards a small patch of woods that was for some reason untouched in the midst of the bustling city. He dropped into the middle of the patch of forest, landing in a small cove.

Rand was immensely relieved to see Rose, Ruby, and a shaking Amber there. Now that his worry had passed, the anger Ice was still clearly feeling was rubbing off on him. He dismounted quickly, turning to face Hiccup. "That was a really bad idea."

Hiccup nodded quickly. "It was. But by the time Toothless decided to intervene, they had already disappeared. Literally." He gestured towards the huddle of Light Furies. "That must be an ability unique to them. Toothless definitely can't do that."

Rand eyed the slightly shell-shocked group of dragons. "They aren't going anywhere for a while. They were shy to begin with." Except for Ice, and even he looked a bit nervous.

"They can stay here for the time being." Hiccup looked around. "The cove is about as isolated as someone can get on Berk. I made sure we kept the area around here pristine, and no one ever bothers coming here. Toothless keeps the other dragons away for some reason, so no one will bother them."

"Good." Rand walked over to Amber and sat down next to her. She immediately climbed onto his lap. "I'll make sure no one does."

"It might be better if you come with me and Toothless, meet everyone else." Hiccup said, looking distracted. "But if you feel like you need to stay with them, that's probably a better plan."

"I do." Rand heard something overhead. "Besides, it sounds like I won't need to go anywhere." Even if he hadn't heard it himself, Ice growling and flaring his wings to shield the other Light Furies would have been a good indication.

Hiccup looked up. "Oh, good. That's my mom." A massive brown four-winged dragon descended into the cove.

"I assume you mean the rider." Rand quipped. Though it wouldn't be totally insane for Hiccup to have a dragon as an honorary mother if he had one as a brother. Who knew how things worked around here.

"Very funny." Hiccup deadpanned, walking out to meet the pleasant-looking woman who descended. She absently hugged him before hurrying over to stand in front of Ice, who growled.

"Amazing..." she laughed lightly, her voice sweet. "Oh, come on. A fearsome warrior like you can't be afraid of me!" Her voice was light and teasing.

Ice didn't let his guard down in the slightest. He gestured with his one good ear at Rand, clearly telling him to do something.

Rand carefully shifted Amber off of his lap, stood, and stepped forward from behind Ice's wing, squeezing between it and the cove wall. "He's a bit overprotective at the best of times. Right now, I don't think he cares if you're dangerous. And I don't blame him. That wasn't the most encouraging welcome for them, even if the dragons meant well."

The woman glanced over at him with a look of mild amusement. "And you would be? I saw someone on the back of one of these magnificent creatures. Is your bonded dragon behind this overworked sentinel?"

Rand blinked. "No, he is the one I am bonded to."

That got the woman's attention. "Strange. Usually, the two have similar characteristics." Her voice was considering.

Hiccup laughed nervously. "Believe me, they do. Mom, meet-"

Rand cut him off. He had been considering this for a while, ever since he began to contemplate the idea of staying here. "Phoenix."

Hiccup eyed Rand oddly but didn't object. "And the scarred Light Fury is Ice. Assembled newcomers, this is my mother, Valka."

Valka took another step towards Ice, stopping when he growled at her again. "I was going to say hello to the rest of you, but apparently not right now."

Rand, from his position off to the side, could see Rose and Ruby nudging at Ice's wings, tentatively asking him to stop shielding them. Valka's soft voice must have gotten their attention. Amber was still huddled on the ground.

"Ice, you can let Rose and Ruby past. I'll stay with Amber, and you can watch Valka." Rand proposed, slipping back behind Ice's protective barricade.

Ice craned his neck around to look at Rand. After a moment he growled at Valka one last time and dropped his wings, revealing two now exasperated female dragons, and Rand, cradling the head of a now half-asleep Amber. With, though no one noticed, one hand on the hilt of his sword. That was what had convinced Ice to drop his guard even slightly, though Rand had no intention of using it.

Hiccup and Toothless left after it became clear Valka had both adult female Furies well in hand for the time being, fawning over them until even Ice snorted in acceptance and lowered his guard. She ingratiated herself among them almost effortlessly, through what looked like practice so often repeated it had become instinct.

Rand watched her, still holding Amber. His mind was elsewhere. Bonding Ice had resolved one part of the inner longing this entire experience had created. The need for a companion, one he could trust implicitly. The other part, the search for a cause, a purpose? He was pretty sure he knew how to satisfy that too.

Eventually, he spoke up, addressing Valka. "Your son is an amazing person."

Valka laughed. "Sons. Toothless counts. They act so similarly too, just to make it obvious."

"Is he always so reckless?" Rand asked directly.

The woman stopped, eyeing Rand. "Around dragons, it isn't recklessness. He knows better than almost anyone. As much as I do."

"I wasn't referring to dragons." Rand continued. "But to dealing with men. He went off to meet a foreign group with only Toothless, despite knowing nothing about them, and having no backup."

Valka sighed. "That, I'm afraid, is normal. Though it is as much born of necessity as character. Toothless travels faster than most dragons can even come close to matching. So Hiccup often doesn't take anyone along for support. Astrid and Stormfly could keep up, but they take on running the human element of the village whenever he's gone, and I the dragons. No one else can do it."

That was the answer Rand had been suspecting.

A few minutes later, Hiccup and Toothless returned, a woman riding an odd bird-like blue dragon following behind, along with a man on a large red dragon. They were arguing even as they landed, the cove now somewhat crowded. Ice, now soothed a bit by Valka, didn't immediately go back to snarling at everyone in sight, but Rand had a feeling that if either dragon got too close they would be greeted quite harshly.

The man on the red dragon, a short and muscular fellow with black hair, was speaking far too loudly for the quiet cove. "Hiccup, I'm sure I can handle-"

"No, Snotlout, you can't." Hiccup cut in, his voice dry and unamused. "I told you, they are shy, and Ice, in particular, might tear you apart if you do the wrong thing."

The woman laughed. "And with you, Snotlout, the wrong thing is the first thing that comes to mind. Such as following us despite Hiccup asking that no one come here until further notice." Her voice, though pleasant, carried an undertone of aggravated steel. She was fit, clad in blue scale armor somewhat similar to Hiccup's black armor. Now that he looked, Rand could see that the brash man was wearing red armor, presumably of the same make.

The riders dismounted, though Hiccup stopped them well short of Ice and the others.

Rand noticed with a slight amount of smugness that the one known as Snotlout paled slightly at the sight of Ice, glaring impassively, scars and mangled ear clearly visible, almost flaunted. Then Snotlout took noticed of Rand, seeming almost desperate to focus on something other than Ice. "Hey, a new guy!"

Introductions were made, Rand once again introducing himself simply as Phoenix. It appeared that the blond woman was Astrid, Hiccup's wife, and the brash man his cousin. Rand didn't mind Astrid, but Snotlout got under his skin. So when Snotlout introduced the dragon he rode as a Monstrous Nightmare known as Hookfang, 'the most intimidating dragon in the archipelago', Rand couldn't resist.

"Then I suppose you should meet Ice, my dragon," Rand said with a somewhat straight face, waving at Ice, who growled at Snotlout. "Forgive him, he's a bit anti-social at the moment."

Snotlout's head whipped back and forth several times, from Ice to Rand and back again. "Seriously?"

Ice nodded deliberately. Rand couldn't hold back a smile at Snotlout's slowly dropping jaw.

After that, everyone but Hiccup and Astrid left. Astrid didn't move to interact with the Light Furies. She was staring at Rand as if trying to read his mind.

Finally, she spoke. "You come from beyond the fog wall?"

"Yes."

"How do we know you're not lying?" She inquired candidly.

Rand considered that. "Honestly... I don't have any proof that doesn't involve going back out there, and I'm in no hurry to do that."

"Why not?"

"I've traveled the world, and this place is where I want to stay." Rand looked over at Ice. "I have a partner, people to protect..." He looked back at Hiccup. "And a duty."

Hiccup frowned. "What would that be?"

"Protecting you and Toothless," Rand replied solemnly, drawing his sword and holding it out hilt-first towards Hiccup. "You need it. I am extremely well-versed in all the ways one in power can be attacked, subverted, betrayed, through personal experience. I was once in a similar position. This is something I can do to make your burden lighter."

"You want to be his bodyguard?" Astrid asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Yes," Rand replied seriously.

"What makes you good enough for that?"

Hiccup tried to intervene, whether to assure Astrid that Rand was capable or to protest Rand being his bodyguard, Rand wasn't certain. Astrid overrode her husband. "And what makes you loyal? This might be a trick."

Rand smiled wryly. "Besides the fact that I owe him my life? I've already taken on the position, official or not. Has he not told you of what occurred?"

Hiccup shrugged sheepishly as Astrid turned to face him. "I was getting to it. Rand, I'll accept your offer, on a few conditions."

"Name them."

"You won't interfere when I work with dragons, no matter how bad it looks." Hiccup spoke confidently.

"Even if you're about to die?" Rand wasn't sure how wise that was.

"Even then. Because I won't." Hiccup nodded. "Second, you'll hold back if I ask. No... no lethal force unless necessary."

"I already try to hold to that. But our definition of necessary may be quite different." Rand held his hand up. "I'll try, but my first priority will be keeping you two alive. The lives of the ones threatening you are not safe while they are in opposition to that goal."

Hiccup sighed. "Good enough. Finally, I take it Ice will be accompanying you?"

"We have an understanding. Yes."

"Then it's up to you and anyone who will help to get the Light Furies comfortable in the village so that he's okay leaving for trips." Hiccup winced, seemingly unhappy with that. "I'd love to help myself, but chiefing takes up most of my time. I'm sure Toothless will be around, so you'll have him, and anyone else who wants to help out. There will be no shortage of volunteers."

Rand nodded. That was going to be a matter of patience and gradual acclimation. It wouldn't be difficult, just slow and painstaking. "Agreed. But I have the final human say in who hangs around them. If I want someone to stop coming around, if someone is bothering one of them, I can tell them to stop, and they'll listen." The covetous way Snotlout had eyed the Light Furies made Rand wary of people looking for a dragon, looking for one that conveyed prestige and status. He'd preempt any unwanted advances now.

"Done." Hiccup smiled. "You're basically their caretaker now. The whole group. You might have to deal with a bit of jealousy. Most people only have one dragon living with them. That reminds me, will you all stay here? It's nice enough, but not very sheltered. Winter will be upon us in a few months."

"For now. Once they're used to being around so many people, then we'll go somewhere else."

Hiccup smiled. "That's it. I accept you as my bodyguard. Mine and Toothless's, I guess."

"You two are two halves of a whole. There's no point in Ice and I only protecting one half." Rand shook Hiccup's hand. "We have a deal."

Hiccup frowned. "One more thing. Why Phoenix?" He glanced over at Astrid. "I keep no secrets from my wife, so anything you told me in private would get back to her immediately anyway."

"In legend, a phoenix is something that dies and is reborn. It is fitting. My previous names all carry weight in the outside world. Phoenix does not."

"Fair enough." Hiccup left the cove, walking out when it became clear Toothless wanted to spend some time with Rose. Those two left cautiously, Rose following close behind Toothless, presumably to some other secluded location.

Astrid eyed Rand doubtfully. "I barely know you, but now you hold my husband's safety in your hands, and I still have no idea if you can carry that responsibility."

Rand met her stare confidently. "Fifty dragon hunters. Me, my sword, and Ice." He casually waved his hand. "Less than two minutes and they were fleeing as if their lives depended on it. Because they did."

"Did you attack from above?" Astrid asked, hand on a strange double-bladed ax.

"No. We attacked from the ground, one to each flank."

"Really." Her voice was unbelieving. "Fifty of them. And I suppose Hiccup saw this?"

"He was unconscious at the time, so no," Rand admitted freely. "But it most definitely happened."

Astrid hefted the ax, a hint of challenge in her eyes. "How about we test you right now?" Her voice wasn't threatening, but it was cold. "Because I need to be sure."

"You might as well, but sparring with me is not a good idea." Rand kept his sword in his sheath. "I fight to kill."

"Good. I could use a challenge." Astrid rushed him, her ax held high.

Rand made eye contact with Ice, assuring him that he could handle it without draconic intervention. Then he pivoted, just as Astrid swung. The void slowed everything down, made his aim sure. He punched out at the flat of her ax at the same time as he slammed his side into her, grabbing with his fist a moment before his weight connected.

Astrid flew off to the side, landing a foot away, her ax firmly held in Rand's hand. She rolled up to her feet, staring at Rand in shock.

Her response made him smile. "Again."

He tossed the ax back and proceeded to lock her in a chokehold the next time she attacked. The next time he disarmed her, putting her flat on her back with an ax to her throat. She was good, much better than the common soldiers he had fought, but training with Warders and Aiell on hand-to-hand combat made him lethal with or without a weapon. He had once slain two armed Warders with his bare hands in under five seconds. She presented little challenge.

After a while she stopped, panting and swearing softly. Rand had been gradually increasing the ruthlessness of his tactics as he became sure she could handle it. He had reached her limit.

She eyed him with something new. Respect. "You're as good as I am."

He smiled at that small bit of pride. "You're the best human sparring partner I've found over here, though I haven't been looking." Time to show her what he could really do. Ice had been getting bored. "Ice, feel like-"

Ice pounced in an instant, accepting the offer. The next half-hour was a grueling blur of attack and counterattack that pushed them both to the limit, neither landing a blow in that time. Rand lost this one, his knees buckling as Ice head-butted him. A small trickle of blood from his nose signaled Ice's victory. The dragon collapsed in an utterly exhausted heap, too tired to even acknowledge his triumph.

Rand looked over at Astrid. Now there was pure awe in her eyes. "That's all out." He muttered. "Think I'm good enough now?"

Astrid was still staring, wide-eyed. "I think... you aren't human. There's no way."

"Sorry, totally human." Mind tricks and Power-enhancements aside, he was human. Not even a channeller anymore.

"Then you're teaching me." Her tone brooked no argument.

"It took me years of constant pressure and practice to get this good." And centuries of practice in his previous life as Lews Therin. But it could all be learned... "But if you're willing to take those years, I can."

"Definitely." Astrid picked up her ax and smirked at him. "But that will have to wait." She left.

"Surprised she didn't want to fight me now." Rand mused aloud. "Now that I can't even stand."

In a few hours, he'd go explore the village, get used to the place. There was so much to do now, after months of following the land or wind, wandering aimlessly. Training Astrid, getting the Light Furies and himself used to Berk, his new duty as Hiccup and Toothless's bodyguard. He was looking forward to all of it.


	6. Epilogue

It had been a year since Phoenix and the Light Furies came to Berk. That was how the villagers referenced it, as if the two were two parts of the same event. A year since that, and five months since the village had officially split, half of the dragon and human populations moving to found a new village on the neighboring island of Trasnya. That village was being led by a council of elders and would elect their own chief in a few months.

Rand woke as he did every morning, to a blinding glare of light. He sat up, a hand to his eyes, knowing this was only Ice's first resort in a series of increasingly unpleasant methods designed to get Rand up. It was an hour after dawn. He stood, glaring sarcastically at the dragon in question, who had deftly opened the skylight with his teeth, pulling the rope across the room.

Ice rumbled happily, carefully stepping across a still-sleeping Ruby and Amber to greet Rand, who automatically reached out and scratched around the base of Ice's ear stub, knowing that area always itched.

After a minute Rand stood, dropping to the stone floor of the central room, going about his morning business.

Now that the Light Furies were comfortable in the village, Rand and the Light Furies had jointly taken over an unoccupied house across the street from the Chief's house, one left open by a departing family, one of the many that moved to Trasnya. The house, like most places on Berk, had been built during the expansion and was built with dragon tenants in mind. Rand avoided the other side bedroom, the one set aside for Rose and Toothless. Those two dragons alternated at random between their families, and though both usually slept over at Hiccup's house, they did sometimes stay here. He had no desire to intrude.

By the time he had eaten a quick breakfast, everyone was up. Ruby nodded happily at Rand as she headed out the dragon door, and Amber, now almost full sized, trotted over for a quick scratching before following her mother out. Ice went with them, to get his own breakfast, as was routine.

After a few minutes of quiet, Rand suited up and went to work. Which for him meant going out to sit on Hiccup's doorstep, watching the village wake up. Not a bad start to any day and the village of Berk might be one of the most entertaining to simply watch in all the world. Even with its population cut down to a far more manageable size, the streets quickly filled with dragons and humans going about their business, the sky flashing every color imaginable as dragons soared over.

He set his helmet at his side, going over the scaled exterior with his hand. It was custom here for riders to make armor out of their bonded dragon's scales when that dragon shed. His suit, however, was special. Ice's scales often came off warped or misshapen by the scars, but Ice had convinced the other Light Furies to contribute as well. His suit of armor resembled Hiccup's, as their dragons were of similar types and therefore scale properties. His, however, was white instead of pure black and glinted quite oddly when caught by the sun. The helmet glinted blue, his arms and gauntlets a light pink, his chest orange, and his legs red. This was only visible at certain moments, and the majority of the time he was a pure white in color.

Other times, however... Hiccup still didn't understand why the scales retained their odd light-bending properties when heated, despite having been shed months ago. Rand personally suspected some use of the Power, though that would raise a thousand more questions if it were so, and they had no way of testing that. Regardless, they had built his armor to be entirely fireproof and heatproof, so Rand was entirely capable of walking through flames, just like Hiccup. However, every time he did, his heated scales bent light around him, effectively rendering him invisible until the scales cooled down, just like a Light Fury. He was told it was an amazingly thorough effect. At the moment though, he was an almost blinding white.

Another white figure dropped down next to him, Ice curling up around him, purring drowsily.

"Oh, sure, now you want to sleep in." Rand griped, smiling. This was an old argument. They both knew Hiccup wouldn't be up for another half hour or so, but Ice still insisted Rand get up at a certain time, like everyone else. Rand didn't really mind, because this was about the best start to the day he could think of.

Though it could be better. He was hoping either Min, Aviendha, or Elayne would come to find him eventually. Ideally Min, because she didn't really have to lead a nation like the other two. But he was content to wait until they sought him out.

A while later Hiccup and Toothless came out of the house, right on schedule. Toothless warbled to someone behind him, and the responding croon told Rand that Rose was going to be accompanying them, as she often did.

Rand stood. "What's on the plan for today?"

"Meeting with the ambassadors from the Bjord tribe," Hiccup responded quickly. "They're pretty far out. Really near the fog wall, actually, though a bit East of where we ran into you. Other than that, nothing new. The big inter-tribal meeting is two months from now though, so there is that."

Rand nodded. He'd known about that meeting, having seen the Terror-mails Hiccup sent out about it, and the returning messages. Over the last year, he had very carefully revealed his past to a select group of Vikings. Hiccup, Astrid, and the one called Fishlegs. By the time he had finished Fishlegs had filled five notebooks and fainted twice, and the other two had looked simply overwhelmed. The aftereffects of that long discussion were that Fishlegs had become very interested in the world outside the fog, and Hiccup had taken Rand into his confidence completely, trusting him to see political subtlety in such messages, among other things. Rand helped where he could, though Vikings were quite straightforward, a lot like Borderlanders, so there wasn't much he actually could do.

The first part of the day passed without incident until at noon a ship put into port, seven Vikings and a few less bulky assistants getting off, to be greeted by Hiccup and Toothless in full gear, Rand and Ice standing off to the side.

Rand had positioned himself to carefully examine each ambassador from the Bjord tribe. Looking for any little sign that they might be untrustworthy, have ulterior motives. Ice stared with him, subtly smelling each man as he walked by. After a year, he and Ice were both very practiced at all of this.

The ambassadors almost all passed without comment. One of the less bulky ones warranted a rumble of unease from Ice. Not a red flag, but something to watch. Rand couldn't see his or her face with the cloak they wore. It was an overcast day, so the cloak was understandable, but another small warning sign.

Hiccup shook hands with the leader, a calm smile on his face. "Chief Ragnar, of the Bjord tribe. It is nice to meet you in person."

The bulky man nodded. "And you, Hiccup of the Hooligan tribe. We have much to discuss."

Hiccup and Ragnar began walking towards the Great Hall, the retinue following behind. Ice very deliberately stationed himself behind Hiccup, appearing to do so by chance to an outsider. Rand took up his position off to the side, watching the walkers. They were thorough, though there had never been a reason for these precautions in the last year.

The cloaked stranger walked a little faster, hands shifting beneath the cloak. That was a red flag. Rand sped up, intercepting the figure just as they lunged, apparently trying to vault over Ice and reach Hiccup.

Ice actually snorted with disdain before slapping the would-be attacker out of the air with a wing. By the time the person hit the ground Rand was there, a sword out as fast as lightning to the figure's throat.

Everyone has stopped, and the ambassadors looked shocked.

Chief Ragnar's face was turning red. "What is the meaning of this! You treacherous worm! Don't vows mean anything to you?"

The cloak fell back to reveal a dispassionate face, unremarkable and unbothered by the sword at its throat or dragon growling nearby. She spoke blandly, as if not caring. "I hold to the vows that matter. The Empress ordered a reconnaissance of this land, and if possible for her operatives to upset any consolidation of power we found."

Rand frowned. "Seanchan." He gritted out, the sword digging deeper. "What does she know?"

The operative laughed feebly. "Nothing yet. But I am one of several, and the others are-"

Chief Ragnar smiled, his face brightening. He cut the operative off with a short laugh. "In my dungeons. I assume the four idiots who tried to assassinate me were your compatriots."

The operative paled for an instant before regaining their affected ease. "It matters not."

Rand nodded. "No, it doesn't." He looked up at Hiccup. "She's Seanchan. But apparently, they know as much as the rest of the outside world does. Nothing."

Hiccup nodded in agreement. "That is true. But it's good to know they're looking our way. We were going to discuss such matters at the meeting in a few months anyway." He turned to chief Ragnar. "And we may now as well. I have more knowledge of the outside world than any other chief, thanks to my bodyguard."

The spy looked up at Rand, her face inquisitive despite the sword. "You are from outside." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Then why are you here? The Seanchan would pay a king's ransom for what you must know."

Rand didn't even bother to hide the scorn he felt at that. "I've fought your people once, don't make me do it again. Besides, all the gold in the world couldn't pull me back out there." He glanced over at Ice. "I've found something better. If your people try and take it over, I'll be first in line to step up to the line and turn them back."

"So be it. Enjoy what little time you have left." The spy's face began to pale. "For the Empress..."

Rand sighed, standing and sheathing his sword. He turned over the cloak to see about what he had expected. A short, oddly-dyed dagger, and a small cut on the woman's palm. When she had been captured, she'd killed herself with the poisoned weapon meant for Hiccup.

In a moment he'd go inform Hiccup and share his analysis of what all this meant. In a few months, they'd rally the entire archipelago because a common enemy brought people together. The Seanchan knew nothing, but they had their eyes on the archipelago. The Isle of Madmen.

Rand stood, his armor glinting his colors in the pale light, a break in the clouds showing the sun for a moment. He held his hand out to Ice, and the dragon readily pressed his nose into Rand's palm.

"A storm's coming." Rand smiled nostalgically. "Just like old times. Wish I had you by my side back then." He turned to face North, towards the rest of the world so far away. "Mat, you'd better stop your power-hungry wife this time. Because if you don't, we will."

The Kinslayer became the Dragon Reborn. The Dragon Reborn died against the Dark One, leaving Rand Al-Thor behind. Rand Al-Thor found a purpose and became Phoenix. It was not Phoenix's place to lead this war, not this time. He would defend the ones who would.

Phoenix and Ice were ready for the storm that would break itself on the sharp cliffs, unforgiving seas, and fiery spirits of the archipelago, man and dragon.

 _ **Author's Note:**_ **To Be continued in** ** _Of Ravens and Dragons._** **That one will be much longer, more complex, and will involve the outside world (obviously). A war between the Isle of Madmen and the conquering Seanchan, with a troubled Matrim Cauthon stuck between his wife and his dubious moral compass. That will be fun. Who knows how long it will take to write though.**


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